


Out of the Closet

by ScarletteStar1



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Erotica, F/M, Lizzington - Freeform, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:02:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 40,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About a week after they were picked up by the white van, Liz and Red find themselves hiding in a closet.  A series of events draw them closer together and further apart as they spend a week sailing to Mexico.  Will they find a way to let each other in, or will their love be swallowed by darkness?  Of course this whole thing is disclaimed. I own nothing about the Blacklist, or the characters, except for my undying love and devotion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic. Thank you so much for reading. Comments are everything!!!

Chapter 1-- 

 

His body is pushing against her, pushing her up against the wall, where they are hiding in the back of the closet. 

Their ears strain to listen to the noises outside the door, someone rustling around in the papers on the desk of their hotel room, sifting through the sheets and towels they had carelessly left strewn around the floor over the past few days. 

Red has his gun drawn. 

He is in front of her, his back pressing her back against the back of the closet, as they wait. Lizzie holds her breath, then realizes she is doing so and slowly, in tiny increments so as not to whoosh and wheeze, she lets it out. Then she takes a quiet breath in. 

And she smells him. 

All she smells is him, filling not only her nostrils, but her entire head until she is dizzy. He hadn’t showered yet that morning, and there is a faint musk to him, a spicy leather, soaked in sandalwood and vanilla, but more animal. Feral, under the civilized, bleached scent of white, hotel robe. Last night’s cigar and scotch is a memory on his skin, but not unpleasant.

His body presses and pushes against her, and her hands are up against his shoulders, partly holding on to steady herself, partly prepared to push away, repulsed, as soon as the coast is clear and she gets the chance. But then, there is this urge she has to slide her hands down, over his ass, pull him closer into her so she can push back against him from places where blood is pooling with uncomfortable volume and speed. 

Get yourself together, Keen! She admonishes herself. 

A week passed since she’d last seen Tom, made love to him on the boat, before they both set sail in opposite directions, never knowing the corners of the earth to which their choices would take them. But she can’t think about that now. She can’t stop and think about Red clutching her fingers on that park bench before she followed him into that white van, the surprising mix of emotions it stirred up within her. She can’t stop and think about the running, the safe houses, the cars, and constant shifting. She can’t think about how it has been like one, long, sleepless night and her tossing and turning within the dark, falling into shallow pits of sleep only to wake reaching out and crying for the unknown. She doesn’t have time to think about any of that. And she certainly can’t think about Raymond Reddington’s bathrobe-clad ass pressing up against her as they hide in a closet from god knows who or what.

All she needs to think about is calculating how quickly she can draw her gun from the back of her jeans, where it is now, the piece grinding into the flesh of her lower back as Red protectively crushes her back against the closet wall. 

Red shifts his weight slightly. Lizzie’s hands compensate, as though they are dancing, on the terry cloth of his shoulders. He cocks his head to listen. 

There is a clatter of what sounds like their breakfast dishes and coffee cups. Footsteps soft as a cat’s paws. 

“When I give the word, we go out on three,” he whispers behind him. He senses her nod.

She releases one of her hands from his shoulder, where it has grown sweaty. She wipes her palm on the hip of her jeans before reaching behind her to wrap her fingers around the butt of her gun. 

“Here we go, Lizzie,” Red growls. “One. Two. . . “


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

She isn’t talking to him. 

He’s exhausted. 

He doesn’t have it in him to try to further explain his choices. At least not tonight. His eyes are heavily lidded and sad as he bows his head, steps into his room and shuts his door. He can’t stand there all night, staring at the door she slammed in his face. He can’t apologize, and wouldn’t if he could. He kept her safe, and at the end of the day, that is all that matters. 

That is all that matters, he thinks. Your silence is a small price to pay for keeping you safe, Lizzie. 

He flicks the deadbolt and crosses the room. The rustling of his own clothes sounds almost ridiculously loud in the silence of the room. Red turns to his bug-out bag on the bed, opens it and riffles around in it until his fingers find the cool, glass neck. 

He twists open the bottle of scotch, looks around the room and finds a plastic-wrapped, plastic cup on the bathroom counter next to the single-cup coffee maker. 

So, this is what it’s come to, he thinks as he regards the plastic cup. Ice would be civilized, but he is just so worn down from the day. A walk to the noisy, rusty ice machine with the bucket that is no doubt crusted in all manner of motel bacteria is too much effort. He’s used his last ounce of energy arguing with and enduring Lizzie. 

Neat will have to do. 

He sloshes a few fingers into the cup, tosses it back and tries to swallow the rue coating the back of his throat. It doesn’t help, so he pours himself another. Then another. Of course he could swill the liquor straight out of the bottle, but even a plastic cup is a modicum closer to the decorum to which he’s accustomed. 

To say that their accommodations are less than posh is the understatement of the century, but they will do for the evening. He’s been in worse places. They can regroup in the morning, figure out their next move. Hopefully, by then, Lizzie will have cooled off, at least enough to talk to him. And if not, fine. It’s not like she has much choice other than tagging along with him. Of course he would rather she go willingly, but the woman has a stubborn streak. If he has to drag her, kicking and screaming, so be it. 

And there’s always the chloroform in his bag. Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, he thinks. She already thinks I’m a monster, which I succeeded in proving once again this morning. Well done, sir. Well fucking done. 

They’d been getting along so well over the past week. Or at least they’d come to a tacit and civil understanding of what life on the run would be like for them. Separate rooms when possible. When not, he takes the couch, or watches her snooze from a chair. They breakfast in the morning, usually brought by Dembe or room service when available, over which they discuss the day and he jokes about her birdlike appetite and keeping up her strength. 

They’d been getting on alright, despite that Lizzie is still in shock. She’s quiet and confused about what has become of her life. But she hasn’t wavered. She allows him to lead her through the days like a child who’s been separated from her parents at the zoo clutches the hand of a docent who will bring her back to some semblance of safety. Sometimes she even sleeps against his shoulder in the car, allows him to press a kiss into the crown of her head. 

He has maintained faith that she will rally. But it could be this morning changed things. Was that really only this morning, he exhales. It already seems like another lifetime ago. 

He sips his scotch, then sets it down so he can take off his jacket. His fingers undo the buttons on his shirt, but he doesn’t take it off. He wants to be ready to run, should they have to. Speaking of which, maybe I should slow down on the drink, he thinks. He runs his hand over his head, then down his face to rub at his eyes. His head has grown muzzy. There’s not even a mini-bar in his room, so no eight dollar packet of peanuts to toss into his stomach. 

Well, anyway, he shrugs. He’s had to run and fight dead drunk before. So, I can do it again. Oh, wouldn’t Lizzie get a kick out of the story about the time I had to flee from an ambush after doing tequila slammers all night at that donkey show, he thinks, chuckles to himself. He imagines her face, incredulous, as he regales her with yet another tale of life on the run. He’s been telling her a lot of those tales over the past few days, partly to make light of their less-than-light scenario so she will feel more at ease, and partly because he enjoys talking to her, enjoys her company, enjoys the way her little nose crinkles and her lips pinch together when he has let a story go one too many times to the well. 

Fuck. This. He thinks. He needs to talk to her, needs to hear her voice. 

Scotch in hand, he heads over to the door, puts his other hand on the knob then thinks better of it. She needs her space. He peers out the peephole at her door across the hallway. It’s closed. All is quiet. He steps back into his room. 

He moves towards the closet, opens the door to find a hanger for his jacket, then thinks better of it and throws the jacket over the crude, wooden chair at the crude, wooden desk. 

How many hours has it been since he was pressing back against Lizzie in that closet? Ten? Twelve? He strides over to the bed, lies back on it with his shoes still on, contemplates kicking them off and decides against it. 

Her hands had clutched at his shoulders as they hid. He remembers this all of a sudden. He had not let it register at the time, had not allowed the thought of anything other than keeping her safe enter his mind while they were in that dark hollow. Now, he sits up, trying to remember what her breath felt like on his neck, how she smelled fresh from the bath. Lavender and vanilla. He sighs. He glowers at the dark doorway of the motel bathroom where he is now, knows there will be no such luxury afforded him at this stopping point. 

He’s catalogued each and every time they have touched since they met. Every little caress of her fingers, or casual embrace. He flips through the memories when he needs to, when the drive to feel a part of humanity strikes him. He likes to delude himself every now and then (and usually after a few belts of the amber elixir) that she holds his absolution in her thin fingers and that she could impart such a gift to him with a simple touch. 

And maybe she does. And maybe she will, even still, he shrugs. 

He lies back again, remembering her hands on his shoulders, as she balanced herself behind him and he pushed her back as far as he could, the urge to protect her strong even though her hands were firm and steady, separated from his own flesh by just millimeters of terry cloth. He grunts into his cup, at the thought. 

Then on the count of three, everything had changed yet again. 

He’d taken out the man without a moment’s hesitation. The guy had a weapon, but no ID and did not look familiar to either of them. At least, they could be relatively certain that without an ID, he wasn’t a fed. Filling body bags with upstanding agents of the law would do nothing other than complicate their situation at the moment. How and why he was in Red’s hotel room was another mystery. 

Thinking the threat was neutralized, they set about collecting their things. Lizzie ran into her room. He had wriggled out of the robe (oh, he’d always loved the comfort of a good, hotel robe!), and was stepping into his pants when he heard Lizzie. 

“Red,” she quivered. 

He turned around, still bare from the waist up, to find Lizzie in a choke hold, a gun held to her head by a woman who looked to be barely out of high school. For a moment, he stood there, assessing the situation. 

“Sweetheart,” he said slowly to the young woman. “You really don’t want any of this. Why don’t you run along. You must be late for soccer practice, or drama club, or whatever it is you young folk do with your afternoons.” 

She responded by tightening her grip on Lizzie’s neck and grinding the gun into Lizzie’s temple. For someone so petite, she was freakishly strong. 

“This is simply absurd,” Red said, sweetly. He smiled at the girl and held out his hands, palms up. “Are you even old enough to drive? Come now, there must be a nice young man waiting for a nooner behind the Seven Eleven with you. If you’ll look over there, you’ll see a duffle bag filled with money. Hundreds mostly. Take what you want to get you and your fellow some pizza. You can even help yourself to the mini-bar, as you are no doubt not of legal age to purchase your own. My treat.” He stood a little straighter, then said with a bit more force, “Come now. Let my friend go. We can see a civilized end to this.” 

The girl’s eyes darted over to where the duffel bag was. And in that millisecond, Red lunged in, wrenched the girl’s arm from Lizzie’s neck, and twisted it behind her back. Lizzie kicked the girl’s feet out from under her and grabbed the gun without much more struggle. Red pushed the girl into the armchair. 

“Who are you,” he growled, his gun aimed and ready. 

“I’m no one, really!” she cried, suddenly looking even tinier pressed back against the plush chair. 

“I’m afraid that is the wrong answer,” Red said, shaking his head. 

“Red,” Lizzie whispered behind him. “Let her go. She’s obviously a tweaker who thought we would be an easy mark. You don’t have to do this.”

“Who are you?” Red asked again, taking a step closer to the girl. Her eyes were ringed in dark makeup which was sliding down her cheeks. 

“Please,” she whimpered. “Your lady is right. I was just looking to score. Let me go, mister. I won’t say nothin to no one.” 

“Red,” Lizzie whispered again. Her hands came up to his back, which was still bare, wandered over the scar on his shoulder. Her voice shook, but her hands were steady. “Let’s go.” 

Red lowered the gun slightly, making note of her fingers drifting over ribbons of tissue. 

There was no way he could explain the racing of his mind at that moment to Lizzie, how he sifted through hundreds of different possibilities and outcomes, weighed each one against their souls and safety. He would try. God knows he would try to explain, but he knew he would never be able to. “I’m sorry, Lizzie,” he said. 

And then he shot. 

It was a clean shot. The girl died instantly. 

The pendulum swung, and the balance shifted. 

Lizzie muffled a noise somewhere between a scream and a sob. He had turned to take her in his arms, and for a moment, she let him. She allowed him to collect her to his chest, and in that moment, he felt her cheek on his chest. 

Then she pushed him off of her as forcefully as she could. 

“What. Did. You. Do?” She sputtered, staring at the girl. For a moment, she covered her face with her hands, then they drifted down to her sides. She was furious, frightened, and disgusted. But her hands were not shaking. Red registered this fact, the gun lowered against his thigh. 

“I did what I had to,” he said. 

He set about pulling on his shirt and tossing items into the go-bag. Lizzie stood paralyzed before the girl, her hands splayed before her, as she watched the life drain out of the girl, staining the chair crimson. Red saw her knees buckle and swooped in to carry her to the bed. He sat her down on the edge of the unmade bed. “Lizzie,” he said firmly. She looked away from him. “Lizzie, look at me,” he said, grabbing her face to make her focus. “We have to move. There will be time to talk about this, but that time is not now. We need to move.” 

“I’m not going with you,” she hissed. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“Yes. Yes, you are.” 

“No!” she shouted and stood up. Red pushed her back down on the bed. She bounced ever so slightly on the mattress before staring up at him with more indignation than he ever imagined was possible from one female gaze. 

“Your choices are as follows, Lizzie. You can get up off that bed and pack your things so we can move, or you can sit there and I will pack your things. Either way, we are leaving this room, and we are leaving together.”

“No. No. This is not what I signed up for when I got in that van with you,”

“Unfortunately, my dear, it is exactly what you signed up for.” He never stopped moving around the room, tossing clothes and toiletries into his bag. 

“Shooting children, Red? What the fuck is that?”

“It is the price we pay.” 

In the end, she came without a fight. But he endured the silent treatment for the entire ride. He didn’t even bother trying to elicit conversation. She needed her space and he could respect that. 

But damn, it makes things lonely. 

The price we will pay. 

He knows she is in her room, pacing, chewing on her nails and the inside of her cheek, worrying that scar on her palm. He knows she will only sleep but moments, if at all, on this night. He knows she is contemplating running away from him, calculating what it would take to break out on her own. And he knows she is sitting down on the bed, or in the chair in a huff of frustration and anxiety because she can’t. She might have the strength and will, but she doesn’t have the contacts and connections. 

He rolls over and grabs the bottle from the night side stand. He doesn’t even bother with the plastic cup as he tosses the liquor into his mouth, trying to burn away the image of her shocked and scared expression as she stood in front of that dead woman. 

The he closes his eyes and tries to climb into the memory of her cheek on his chest, if only for a moment.


	3. Chapter 3

Three curt raps on his door. 

He moves from the desk to the door in four long strides, his hand on the gun in the back of his pants. Lizzie’s downturned face fills the peephole. He draws a breath and moves his hand from his gun to the door handle. He pauses for a moment to take in the sight of her. She’s the best thing he’s ever seen, even through the distorted glass of the peephole, even as she shifts her weight, impatient for him to open the door. 

A peephole of Lizzie, he smiles. My kingdom for a peephole of Lizzie. 

He opens the door, filling the opening with his frame. 

“Good morning, Lizzie,” he says. 

She looks up at him. 

There it is! He thinks. That sweet, little scowl she makes when we are about to negotiate a truce. He keeps his demeanor carefully even, tries his hardest not to allow her to see a hint of the boyish glee he feels underneath. 

He steps aside and allows her into the room. 

“Are you hungry? I stepped out this morning to get the papers and I picked us up a small repast from the little bakery in the village. Lucky for you, no guava and no pancakes. But a chocolate croissant or blueberry muffin perhaps? Oh, and the cinnamon buns are just delightful.” 

“I’m not hungry.”

“You really should eat something, Lizzie. You need to keep up your strength.” His eyes run up and down her frame, and he nips the inside of his cheek. His concern is sincere. She has lost a good deal of weight over the past ten days. 

“I’m not hungry,” she repeats. 

“Well, coffee then,” he says. He extends a large, paper cup in her direction. His eyes look back at the baked goods on that wretched desk. He wishes he could feed her, but getting into a power struggle over her appetite will not help things between them at the moment. 

He moves his eyes up to her face, makes a moment of very direct eye contact, and then nods once towards the cup. She reaches out for it, and takes it without touching his hand. He sits down in the chair and helps himself to a bite of the croissant. 

She removes the lid of the cup and brings it to her lips. Coffee in the morning is one of the few things that has remained intact from her past life. She remembers Tom, or whoever the fuck he was, pouring her coffee into her travel mug on those happy, busy mornings when she first started working at the Post Office. Who would have guessed that something so mundane and pedestrian would be her greatest longing only a couple short years later. She sips. It’s a decent cup of coffee, and it is just the right temperature. It is a small, creature comfort in this foreign land to which Reddington has brought her. 

And speaking of which, where the hell are we? She thinks. The caffeine helps her brain to focus on the questions she needs to ask him. She does not want to talk to him yet, but she needs to get her bearings like a sailor needs to get his sea legs underneath him. She looks at him sitting there, looking very much at ease in this god forsaken motel room, munching on pastry and thumbing through the paper without a care in the world. 

“We need to talk,” she says. 

“Yeah,” he says. He sets down the paper and looks up at her. “And we shall.”

“Where the hell are we, Reddington?” 

“We are nowhere, at the moment. However I would like to get us somewhere. We need to leave the country, get some distance between us and them, whoever “they” might be at the moment. I have people looking into that little matter back at the hotel. In the mean time, I would like to get us to San Francisco and then down to Mexico.” He bites the corner of his cheek, crosses his legs and leans back in the chair. “You need some rest, Elizabeth. I would like to get you someplace where we can settle down for a bit, relax, regroup.” 

“I don’t think I will ever relax again,” she says into her coffee cup. She drains it and notices two more cups on the desk. “Are we expecting company?” 

“No. I know you like your coffee, and lots of it, in the morning. I took the liberty of getting a little extra. I know you probably didn’t get much sleep last night.” She stares at the cups, not wanting to accept even this little kindness of a second cup of coffee from him, feeling off balance again like the sailor on rocky seas. Sensing this, Red picks up a cup and holds it out to her. “Lizzie,” he begins, but doesn’t know what words to place after her name. She takes the cup and perches on the edge of his already-made bed, across from where he sits in the chair. 

There is just a small space between their knees. 

She places the coffee on the nightstand, then folds herself onto her lap, groaning in exhaustion, her face in her hands. He reaches out, at first allowing his hand to only hover over her head. His hand drops into her damp hair, tucks it behind her ear. His thumb wanders over her cheek until his whole hand cups her face which looks small and pale and fragile in his grasp. There are dark circles beneath her eyes into which he imagines resting his thumbs, ever so gently, because they would fit just so. 

She responds to the pressure of his touch by raising her face, looking at him. His hand moves to the back of her neck, and he leans forward to return her gaze. Her face gives nothing away, her steady gaze every bit as practiced as his. 

“Lizzie,” he begins again, holding her gaze. His fingers manipulate the firm flesh on the back of her neck ever so slightly. “I’ve upset you. I am sorry you are upset with me. But I am not sorry for what I did. We can argue about it all day, but we have to keep our house clean if we are going to make this work.” 

“Our house,” she snorts, shaking her head. 

She closes her eyes. She hates that he’s touching her, but she hates it because it feels good. Comforting. Normal. Almost hypnotic. Despite the cup and a half of coffee she is so tired. She almost forgets the price at which they are staying safe, almost forgets that for Red to keep her alive and free he will stop at nothing, will burn down the entire world if need be. 

And it will be her fault. For reasons she does not even know yet. There is just as much blood on her hands as there is on his. 

“I didn’t think,” she whispers. “It was all just reaction. I didn’t know.” 

“You didn’t know what?”

“What it would be like to sell my soul to the Devil,” she exhales. She looks up at him and wriggles away from his touch. He sets his hands down on his knees, still leaning forward slightly as they regard one another. He accepts her boundary with a small nod. 

“I didn’t want this for you, Lizzie.” 

“So you said.” 

She is going to get up. She is going to stand and walk out of there, go back to the solitary confinement of her own room, if only to punish herself. She is going to leave him with his fucking croissant and coffee. She is going to forget the look on his face as he pours through every page of every paper looking for news of the gamble he has made as though trying to scry in a crystal ball to see their futures. 

She is going to go for a run, and shower again, and keep her mouth shut. She is going to punish both of them with her silence. She fully intends to do all of this, but then she looks up into his eyes and the sad, emerald forest she finds there complicates everything. 

“I’m so tired,” she says. 

“Then sleep,” he replies. 

He takes her hand and pulls her up towards the pillow on his bed. She lets him. He plumps the pillow and lays her back on it. She lets him. He lifts her legs up onto the mattress and slides her shoes off her feet. She lets him. He brushes her hair away from her face, kisses her forehead. Sitting up, he cocks his head to look at her, his hand still on her legs. While she doesn’t reach for his hand, she does not push it away either. His shoulders rise and fall with his breath. 

She smells him on the pillow, in the covers. She tries not to remember the moment back in that closet when she had that urge to pull him closer to her own body. She tries her hardest not to allow his scent to remind her of anything, because she does not want him to see her blush in guilt and embarrassment, and she also does not want to remember what came after that moment in the closet. She wants to forget that he shot that girl, even as she knows she never will. She wants to forget all of that nastiness because there is a part of her that wants to forgive him. 

“Just sleep,” he says again. He sits back down in the chair, tries not to look at her, but their eyes catch for a moment before hers close. 

There it is, he thinks. There is our ceasefire. 

He is her sentinel as she drifts off to sleep. He sits perfectly still until her breath takes on the deep, even lull of a slumbering child. Then he lifts his hand to his face and inhales the lingering perfume of her skin and hair on his fingers.


	4. Chapter 4

Red watches Lizzie sleep. 

His fingers rest on his lips. 

It is almost painful to see her curled so beautifully on the dingy, motel bedding. He had covered her with his jacket a while ago, and now he sits, as though in a vigil, over her. 

He sits still; does not dare open the newspaper, sip his coffee, or even take another bite of pastry for fear of waking her. He couldn’t eat anyway. It’s as though she wiped away every earthly and mortal need of his by allowing him to settle her, not even aware she left him sitting in awe at her feet. Feet that only moments ago he had caressed as he removed her shoes. 

He considers her feet, tucked neatly up near her bottom, as she lies curled and asleep. Tapping his upper lip, he makes a mental note to take the woman for a pedicure. Her plum toenail polish is chipping away. Perhaps she will allow him to do that for her at least. When they get to Mexico, he will do a good many things for her, if she allows it. He will take her shopping for splashy floral prints, will teach her to scuba dive, will guard her as she rests in a hammock by the sea. 

She needs the rest. As strong as she is, the past ten days on the run have taken their toll on her. He grimaces as he recalls the words she used just a short time ago to describe her life with him. 

What was it, now? He wonders. She didn’t know what it would be like to sell her soul to the Devil? I suppose that’s fair enough. 

It stings, though. 

Her scent has faded from his fingers. He strokes the little valley in his upper lip, mourning the loss of her delicate fragrance. How she managed to still smell like lavender and vanilla in this hell hole was beyond him. The mysteries of women. 

He finds himself craving something he cannot name, finds himself half wild with restless urges. 

But he sits there in stillness watching her sleep. 

It is almost painful. 

He contemplates getting up. A cold shower would do the trick, he thinks. 

But he wants to be here when she wakes. He does not want her to wake scared and alone. His need for her comfort and protection overshadow any other base impulse he has. 

But still. . . 

What would it be like, he wonders, to climb into bed behind her? 

To curl up into the curves of her? What would it be like to bury his face in her hair, inhale the sweet skin at the nape of her neck? He would twist her hair in his hand until he found her flesh beneath. If only he could press his lips there, in the hollow at the base of her skull, if only he could breathe against her in the same rhythm, if only he could put his arm around her and feel her wiggle back against him, as he nibbled her shoulder. 

His hand would glide down, over her hips and thighs. His hand would glide back up, under her shirt to caress the firm flesh of her stomach, the delicate bumps of her rib cage. He would fill his hand with her breasts as he slides a leg over her, to press harder into her, his leg hooked around her. 

What would it be like to hear her moan as she feels the effect she’s had on him against her ass? 

He would turn her, ever so gently and slowly, to face him, would fill her mouth with his kiss, would tug at her bottom lip with his teeth. Oh, if only he could kiss her. He would be a drowning man, revived by her breath. 

How would it feel to have her arms come up around him, for her lips to travel down his neck, for her to bite him until he cried out and couldn’t stand it any longer? 

He imagines the expression on her face as he strips her shirt from her, peels her pants off of her, imagines her yielding as she grants him relief. 

Absolution. 

Oh, Elizabeth, he murmurs into his palm. 

He finds himself hard.

Suddenly. Irrationally. Like a school boy in algebra class. He is shocked and embarrassed. He glances at his crotch in dismay. 

It is painful. 

In the dozens of women he’s had in his life, there is only one Lizzie. And he will never have her. He tries to shake the very thought of possessing her as he simultaneously tries to forget it can never be. 

The price we will pay, Lizzie, he exhales. 

He tries to steady his breath, which has quickened. If he doesn’t calm and collect himself, he will come right there, in his pants, as he sits watching her sleep. 

And that will not do. 

You selfish, stupid bastard, he thinks. To think she would ever want a monster-- a Devil!-- like you. Get yourself together. 

His erection wilts against his thigh, but his balls are hungover from his fantasy. His hopeless, helpless fantasy, of the unconscious and tortured woman lying on the bed in front of him. She has already been through hell because of him. To pursue any kind of intimacy with Lizzie would only serve to torment her further, to prove that her vision of him is valid. 

That will not do. 

And it is painful.


	5. Chapter 5

Liz has never been so happy in her entire life as she is in Mexico. She lies on the beach for hours, growing brown as an almond, as she gazes at the azure sea. She plays in the surf with abandon she’s not known since childhood, if ever. When she comes up from the water, she finds Red in a hammock and he hands her a lime popsicle. “Aren’t you a sight for these sore, old eyes,” he hums as she sits down beside him and they sway together in the rope nest. 

Red takes her to Mayan ruins. They climb to the top of a pyramid and survey the water from way up high. 

“It’s so beautiful, Raymond,” she says. 

“Yes. You are,” he murmurs into her hair, slipping his arm around her waist.

Red buys her a bracelet of brightly colored turquoise, coral, and lapis set in sterling silver, to match the bright dresses he lays out on her bed after a trip to the market. 

Red is there with her, almost always, if not right at her elbow then close by, watching over her. Lizzie starts to feel safe, secure. Her feelings for him grow into a fondness, and fondness becomes something more, something she’s not felt since those first bumbling days with Tom. 

One night, while walking back to their cottage from dinner, Lizzie lets Red kiss her in the moonlight. 

He holds her and sighs, “Oh, Lizzie. Sweet, sweet Lizzie,” against the crown of her head. The fragrance of salt water and beach roses fills the warm air as his hands drifts through her hair, encircle her neck and start to squeeze. 

She pushes against his chest, but cannot get free. Shocked, she sees his face as he strangles her. His mouth is set in a straight line, and his eyes glitter with malice as he puts her down. 

Lizzie’s eyes fly open and she wakes with a soft gasp. It takes a moment for her to remember where she is, but as her eyes focus, she finds herself back in the dim and dingy motel room. 

She pushes up onto her elbows. Red’s jacket slides down from her shoulders, where it has been covering her as she slept. Shaking the dream from her head, she sees Red. He’s still sitting in the chair where he was when she fell asleep. 

“What time is it?” she asks. 

“It is almost two. Did you sleep well? It seems like you slept well.” 

“I slept for five hours?” She looks around her. He has a strained expression on his face, and it looks like he is covered in a light sheen of sweat. “Did you sit there the entire time?”

“I did.” 

“Oh,” she yawns. “Well, I hope I didn’t snore or talk in my sleep. Wouldn’t want you to get any of my diplomatic secrets or anything.”

He chuckles. “Would you look at that, Agent Keen. You’ve made a little joke. Does this mean we are feeling better?” He tilts his head to look at her, and his lips twist up into a smile. 

“Does a person actually ever ‘feel better’ after shooting the Attorney General of the United States, becoming a fugitive on the run, and watching a child get shot in front of you?” 

“Touche, Lizzie,” Red says. His smile fades slightly and he raises his eyebrows, creasing his forehead. “You will feel better, though. Eventually. I promise you.” 

Lizzie sits up and folds his coat. Without it over her, it feels chilly in the room. She doesn’t know why Red looks flushed and sweaty, except that it must have been excruciating sitting in that awful chair for five whole hours as she slept. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed, stands and holds his coat out to him. 

“Thank you for this,” she says as he stands and takes the coat from her. “I should go.” 

“Yes. You should go and pack your things. We need to leave, Lizzie. We need to get on the road. It will take us about 20 hours to get from here to San Francisco, if we drive straight through, which we can do if you are willing to take turns driving with me. I know you are tired, and you will have time for a nice rest, when we get to where we are going.” 

He reaches out to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. Her eyes glance at his fingers as they graze her cheek. She shivers, remembering how his hands clenched her throat in her dream. 

“Where did you say we were going again?” she asks, anxiety prickling at the nape of her neck and in the pit of her stomach. 

“Mexico. I have access to a lovely little cottage on the Yucatan Peninsula. We can eat flan by the sea. Did I ever tell you I have an affinity for custards?” he croons. He sweeps his hand in front of him as though gouging at a giant custard with a spoon. 

“How exactly are we going to get to Mexico?” She snaps at him, adding. “And anyway, Reddington, flan is Spanish not Mexican.” 

“Well, Miss Know-It-All, I’m sure there is a Mexican version we can enjoy.” His smile is indulgent. “Anyhoo, There is a boat from San Fran which will transport us down to Mexico, and then we travel by car across to the Yucatan. Do you like to sail, Lizzie? It will take us about six days if we travel under sail alone, but quicker if you would rather motor. I personally find the fumes from an engine an assault on the sinuses, but it’s your call.” 

She stares at him. She tries to lick her lips, but her mouth is dry. 

“What’s the matter, Lizzie? Do you get seasick?” he asks, genuine concern in his face. 

“No,” she stutters. “No. It’s just, how are we going to get all the way across Mexico?”

“I have a connection.”

“What connection?”

“Hector Dos Santos, and some other friends who owe me a thing or two.” 

“A Mexican drug lord?” Lizzie chokes. “Red, I cannot travel and hide out at the favor of a Mexican drug lord!” 

“Whyever not?”

“Uh, because I’m an FBI agent! I can’t be accepting favors from criminals like Dos Santos!” As soon as the words leave her mouth, Lizzie realizes the ridiculousness of them. She shakes her head and slaps her thighs angrily. She must still be half asleep to be so foolish. 

“Lizzie,” Red begins. His voice is sober. Void, for once, of any joviality. She holds her hands up to stop him from saying more. 

“Right,” she says. She shakes her head, then tosses it back and laughs ruefully. “I’m no longer an FBI agent, am I? I’m a criminal. I’m on the FBI’s most wanted list and I’m on the run with Raymond Reddington!” 

“Well, when you say it like that, it all sounds so sordid,” Red says. He crinkles his eyes, but he’s not smiling. At least he knows enough not to make a joke at a time like this, Liz thinks. She purses her lips.

“How did this happen?” she sighs, sinking back down onto the bed. 

She looks up at him. Tears sting her eyes. “I used to have a life. I had a husband and a career. I liked my life, Red! It wasn’t even real, but it was mine! I was someone on a path. I had goals and morals. Now look at me; I’m a criminal. I’m no one.” She buries her face in her hands and sobs. She stops abruptly and stands up. “Nope,” she says suddenly. She wipes her eyes. “I’m not going to do this.” Not in front of you, she thinks. 

She starts toward to the door. He catches her arm, pulls her to him. She wants to resist, but she also wants to be comforted. Raymond Reddington is the most powerful person she has ever met. Why can’t he have a fucking time machine I can crawl into? Why can’t he pop me back into a timeline before he ever entered my life? 

But then, has he ever not been in my life? she wonders. 

She lets him pull her against his chest. “Elizabeth,” he commands, cupping her tear-stained face with his hands to make her look up at him. “You are very much someone. You have entered into an untenable situation. And I, for my part in it, am deeply sorry. You will never know how sorry I am. But we will get through this.” He tucks her head back against his chest, strokes her hair as he continues, and she hears the words purring through his chest, “You will get through this. And you will be stronger and wiser. You will be everything and you will have everything of which you dream.” 

She’s hearing words she needs to hear, so she allows the embrace. Even as she knows that Red is just feeding her what she wants to hear. She knows there is no going back to “normal” after the moves she’s played in this nightmare of a game. But it is pretty and tender to think she could go back to a boring world of coffee in the morning and walking the dog. 

She melts ever so slightly into Red’s embrace. She even allows the little kisses he dusts on her cheeks. Sandalwood and amber. The heady musk of his skin fills her head. She feels an urge to nuzzle into his neck, to press her own lips against his skin. What would it be like to allow the Concierge of Crime to comfort me? She imagines. 

Breathless, she tilts her face up towards him. She feels the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes, hears him moan softly in the back of his throat. The noise floods her senses, and for a moment she can’t even think of turning away. 

But then, he holds her so tightly against him and she feels his breath on her face and the dream comes flooding back. She becomes dizzy and cold. What is he doing to me? She shivers. 

“I should go pack,” she says, pushing off from his chest as a swimmer might push off from a wall underwater. 

“All right then,” he says, nodding his head in a gesture akin to a bow. “Meet you in 20.” He backs away from her. 

Her heart races as she makes her way to the door. As she turns the knob, steps out into the hallway, and closes it silently behind her, she realizes her heart is racing partly out of terror, and partly because his caresses aroused her. She blushes in fury as she opens the door to her room. 

In truth, her bag is already packed. It’s is on the bed, ready to go. She had, for an instant, contemplated ducking out last night without Reddington, but thought better of it. She needs him. As much as she hates to admit it, she needs him. 

She sits down on the bed, next to her bag, zips it up, then folds her hands in her lap. Her crotch is throbbing in a way that is gummy and confusing. Get a grip, Keen, she chastises herself, much as she did in the closet the day before. She chalks it up to being in the whirlwind race of the past week, the disorientation and loneliness. And Red is a charming and attractive man. And he’s the only man she will likely be around in the foreseeable future. But to become intimate with him would just make her situation-- what was his word? Untenable?-- all the more untenable. 

It can not be. She thinks about taking a cold shower to help ground her, but then there is a knock on her door. She tucks her gun into her jeans, strides over to the door and looks through the peephole. 

It's Red and it's time to travel.


	6. Chapter 6

They stroll out of the motel and make their way to the car. 

“I’ll take the first shift,” Red announces, sidling up to the driver’s side. 

“Wait. What?” Liz raises an eyebrow, looks around. “Where’s Dembe?”

“Dembe is currently on a different itinerary,” Red says. “Come on. Get in.” They climb into the car. “I have him working on a couple of things, at the moment. And right now it is safer for us to split up for a bit. He’ll reconnoiter with us in Mexico.” Red starts the car. 

“You drive?” Liz says. 

“Well don’t look so incredulous, Agent Keen!” Red chortles. “There are a good many things I know how to do, and to do well believe it or not.” 

“Okay then,” she says. “You drive.” Her sunglasses cover a good deal of her face, but Red swears he catches a look of amusement. Thatta’ girl, he thinks. 

Her nap served her well, and now Lizzie is sitting straight and very alert in the passenger’s seat. Any minute now, Red thinks. The barrage of questions will start and I will have to stay on my tiptoes to engage in the painful cat and mouse with her. 

There’s so much she wants to know, and so much he can’t yet reveal for exponential reasons upon reasons. While he’s never lied to Lizzie, per se, he has managed to keep certain truths from her. Initially, this was to protect her. But now. . . 

I’m just not ready yet, he sighs, his eyes on the road before them. 

They are getting a later start than he likes, but he doesn’t mind the drive. The hours start to blend, one into another. 

He feels a certain comfort to being enclosed in the small, metal capsule of the car with just her. He has the urge to reach over and rest a hand on her thigh as they drift on. It would be so sweet just to hold her hand as they drove, like he used to do with his high school girlfriend at the movies. Or to pull off into a rest stop and ravage her like a hungry teenager after the prom, right there in the car. His cock twitches a bit, just thinking about how he would thrust his hand up her shirt and pinch at her nipples as he devoured her mouth with his. His thoughts escalate rapidly as he considers if he would rather come in her hand or mouth or go all the way. 

He decides he would most likely explode in a torrent the second she touched him. The thought is embarrassing and delicious all at once. 

Reddington! This is Lizzie you are thinking about! Get a hold of yourself, you prick! 

He catches himself and steadies his fingers around the steering wheel. 

As if she is reading his mind, she glances over at him. He keeps his eyes on the road, but feels her gaze ripple over him. 

“Something on your mind, Lizzie?” 

“There are a lot of things on my mind,” she says. 

“We have a long voyage before us. Feel free to share your thoughts.” 

She sighs but doesn’t say anything to accept his invitation. 

He thinks of the six days they will spend at sea, in the confines of a 32 foot sailboat. He would have preferred something a bit larger, but of course he will not have a full crew on board, so he needs something he can man himself. Although, he imagines he can make an able sailor out of Lizzie in no time at all.

The thought is almost romantic. Almost. Or at least it would be if they weren’t running from the law and god-knows-who-else. 

He’s had the boat fully stocked with delicacies, wine, chocolate, cigars, scotch, fresh clothes, and even a basket for Lizzie of deluxe toiletries, several sarongs, and a bathing suit just in case she feels the urge to do a little sun bathing. You never know. 

He goes over the list in his head, hoping he’s left nothing out. It is a horrendous situation, but he wants Lizzie to be as comfortable as possible. Her contentment is priceless. He’s done so much to torment her, and she continues to be in more jeopardy than she even knows. If he can just protect her from it all for a little longer, if he can just see her smile again. He knows he is responsible for her distinct lack of smiling of late, and it is his mission to bring back her smile, that caustic, little sense of humor. I would sell my soul for even a hint of it, he thinks. 

For a while, they drive in silence, Lizzie still with that thoughtful expression on her face. Red turns on the radio and channel surfs until he finds a station playing jazz. He likes the complexity of the music, how his mind can get lost in it, as it seldom can. But just as he is starting to zone out, Lizzie reaches out and turns off the radio. 

She’s quiet for a moment, then takes a big breath. 

“I keep wondering what my father would think of me,” she says, breaking the quiet. 

“Sam would never be anything but proud of you, and honored to be your father,” Red says without a moment’s hesitation. 

“Even now? Even after what I’ve done?”

“Yes,” he nods decisively. “Even now.” It is not even a question that Sam would love Lizzie beyond all reason, regardless of her transgressions. 

The bigger question is what Sam would think of the fact that the transgression that made her a criminal was because of Reddington? And what would Sam think of the complex emotions Red is experiencing towards Sam’s adopted daughter? Oh, Sam. I set out to love and protect her with all my heart, and then she stole it. She stole my heart and I can’t help myself, he thinks. 

He smiles, remembering how she palmed Madeline Pratt’s cell phone, stole her sim card. Ah, yes. It was just like that. The little thief! 

And he realizes that might have been the moment, but there have been so many moments it is hard to tell exactly when she took his heart away from him and started carrying it with her everywhere, much like that tattered bunny she dragged out of the fire with her.

“What on earth are you smiling about over there, Reddington?” She swats at his arm and just that little connection is enough to set his breath on fire. “You look like Sylvester used to look after he swallowed Tweety Bird!” She’s smiling at him. A real smile! With dimples and everything! That’s my girl. 

“Just remembering Sam,” he says, allowing his own smile to spread out over his entire face. She seems satisfied with this answer as she adjusts herself in the seat, getting comfortable. She turns the radio back on for him. 

They drive for another hour, mostly quiet but for the jazz. 

“Can we stop at a store?” She asks.

“What do you need, Lizzie?” He asks. “If you tell me, I can arrange to have it brought to the boat.” He thinks surveillance cameras in shops an unnecessary risk he would rather not take. She crosses her arms and exhales as if frustrated. “What’s the matter? You have something against room service?” 

“No, it’s just, I always enjoyed browsing in the make-up aisle of pharmacies. I like looking at all the shades of eyeshadow and nail polish, picking out a fresh lipstick. I know it sounds frivolous and girly, but I just thought it would feel so normal to buy myself a new lipstick.” Her voice is not angry, but wistful. “Of course, I don’t even have my own wallet, or a dime to my name now. I couldn’t buy a pack of gum.” she adds. 

“We will remedy that situation post haste,” Red says. How foolish of him not to have thought of giving Lizzie her own cash. 

“I’ve always been an independent woman, Red,” she says. 

“Yes. I know this about you, Lizzie.” 

“So, can you imagine how it feels for me to need a make-up allowance like I’m some kind of teenager asking her parent for money?” 

Her words are like a punch in his gut. He thinks about watching her sleep, how painfully hard his thoughts of her had made him. His mind is a swirl of fantasies of things he could do to her, given the chance. He thinks of his compulsive need to protect and please her in ways which are not even remotely parental. 

He finds himself in a confusing haze of guilt and arousal.

He wonders if they need to talk about that little moment back at the motel, when he was trying to comfort her and in her sleepy sadness she tipped her pretty face up to him, almost begging to be kissed. And he would have kissed her. Had she not pushed him away and left the room, he would have pressed his aching lips to hers and kissed her as she’d never been kissed before, because surely no man living or dead had ever loved a woman as Raymond Reddington loves Elizabeth Keen. And he would have confessed all of this to her, would have gladly made a love-struck fool of himself, laid himself at her feet and washed them with his own tears of remorse and passion. 

He would have done all of this, and more. 

Had she not pushed him away. 

Which she did. 

She had called him “the most cautious man she knew” in the not so distant past. But he’s slipping. He’s losing his grip. Being alone with her, day in and day out, is getting the best of him. He’s inhaling her in huge doses in very small spaces, like a mind-altering peyote steam bath, and it is making his palms slippery on his grasp of reality. 

“I’m not your parent, Lizzie,” he manages. She says nothing.

They drive on in companionable silence.


	7. Chapter 7

The Golden Gate Bridge is engulfed in fog and sunset, as they pull into San Francisco. 

Lizzie prays the fog won’t be an issue for them when they get out onto the water. To come this far and then be either lost at sea or shipwrecked would be disappointing, to say the least. She contemplates the irony of her and Red making their escape out to sea, after she had turned down Tom’s offer to do exactly the same thing a few weeks ago. 

“I’ve never been here before,” she tells Red as he navigates the streets like he comes to the city all the time. 

“I’m sorry we can’t stay and play tourist. It is a delightful city,” he says. “They have a ravishing ballet company and a terrific museum of modern art, if those are your things.”

“Not really,” she smiles. “At the moment, my ‘thing’ is surviving this little adventure you have planned for me and getting the hell out of the country.” 

“That’s it, Lizzie,” he exclaims, sounding joyous and energized despite the 20 hours on the road. “I love that you are thinking of it as an adventure!” He pulls the car into a marina and finds a parking spot. “We’re here,” he says. 

It isn’t the first time Liz is seized with apprehension. The prickling in her gut starts up again in full force and she feels herself pale, thinking she might vomit. He must see her eyes widen because he takes her hand and says, “Lizzie. I know this is a bit unorthodox, but I assure you, I am an able-bodied sailor. The forecast is clear and calm, and this vessel is ship-shape, as we used to say in the Navy. Actually, we never used to say that in the Navy, but it does sound reassuring in a kitschy kind of way, doesn’t it?” 

Lizzie thinks for a moment about the FBI, all the resources they must be exercising to bring her and Red to justice. 

He squeezes her fingers. He takes off his sunglasses, even though the evening light is still bright off the water, and looks at her. “I am not going to let anything happen to you,” he vows. 

His voice has a way of taking on a higher, lyrical timbre when he is making light of things. But it goes quite dark, deep, and smokey when he is serious, as he is now. 

Liz looks at him, squeezes his hand back, and says, “Okay then.” She pulls her lips up into a smile, shrugs a bit, and starts to gather her few things together into the little handbag Red had given to her. It’s plum-colored leather. Simple but elegant with just enough pockets to keep things organized. It’s exactly what she would have picked for herself, and he’d given it to her in a coyly offhanded manner with a wad of twenties, as though he’d pulled it all from a hat. 

She doesn’t have much to put in it, and won’t have many shopping opportunities in the near future, but it had been a nice gesture. 

Red is full of nice gestures when it comes to her. That is, she thinks, when he isn’t killing my father, shooting girls, or marrying me of to sociopaths. 

Well, nobody is perfect. 

“Are we ready?” He asks. She nods. He puts his sunglasses back on as he turns for the door, but not before Liz notices the fine, golden fringe of his eyelashes illuminated by the sunset. She bites her lip as she turns to exit her own door. 

Someone is already getting their bags out of the trunk, and as soon as Red and Liz have their stuff in hand, someone comes and drives the car off. “Oh,” she gasps. I’m in it now, she thinks. As if I haven’t been in it for the past two years. 

The boat is an inconspicuous, gray sloop with a single mast and white jib sheet furled around the headsail. The words Always Gold are painted in yellow on the stern. 

A caucasian male with ruddy skin and a patchy beard steps up to Red, shakes his hand and gives him some keys and papers. “Is everything the way I asked?” Red questions him. 

“I think you will be pleased, Sir,” the man replies. 

“Then thank you. That will be all.” Red hands him a pudgy envelope and they shake hands again. The man walks away, disappears into the dusk. “Are you ready to come aboard, my dear?” Red croons. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Liz answers, trying to swallow the pit of anxiety in her throat. 

Red boards first, stepping over the edge of the vessel and down into the cockpit. Liz hands him their bags, and then he helps Liz over. 

She looks around her. The boat is trimmed with gleaming teak. Turquoise cushions line the seats in the cockpit. There is a basket of bright, yellow beach towels rolled up like giant roses. A bottle of champagne glistens with beads of moisture as it lounges in an ice bucket on a tray next to crystal flutes. 

Red bounds down the companionway with their bags. “Oh yes!” She hears him cry from down below. “This will do nicely. Lizzie, come down and take a look before we set off.” 

She climbs down into a small, but well appointed cabin. To the right there is a galley with a marble counter, tiny stove, and stainless steel refrigerator. Shelves are lined with all manner of fresh food, treats, and supplies. To the left there is a stunning teak table, and bench lined with the same, puffy turquoise cushions as up above. Sleek windows are trimmed with coral curtains. There are shelves full of books and maps, an elaborate entertainment system, and even a few board games. Liz notes a new-looking laptop and satellite phone set up in a corner office, in the space beneath the benches of the cockpit. 

Through the living/kitchen space is a tiny bathroom with tile floor and shower. And beyond that is a cabin with two beds that are slightly larger than twins, and slightly smaller than doubles. They are separated by a batik curtain, hung from a brass rod. Underneath the beds are drawers and above the beds are shelves. There are a few sweaters and hooded sweatshirts on the shelves. Liz slides open a teak drawer on the left side and finds it lined with every color of shirt, long and short sleeved. 

She opens another drawer and finds it piled with cotton pj’s, and freshly folded bras and underpants. In a sense of bewildered curiosity, she fingers one of the undergarments to find the tag. Her size. Her hand comes up to her cheek, attempting to hide the blush that is rising hotly to her cheeks. 

How on earth did Red choose and order all this stuff? She wonders, suddenly realizing she needs to close her mouth which is agape. She’s not sure if she’s angry or amazed. 

“Now, I know you tend towards the olives and grays, but I thought we could experiment with putting a little color on that lovely body while we are at sea,” Red says, his sing-songy voice, gently teasing her. 

He opens a slender closet and reveals a series of dresses, some long, some short, just like the shirts. “I’ve always wanted to see you in a Guayabera dress,” he says. “That’s more of a Cuban trend than Mexican, but still, the seer sucker of these is just so breezy and effortless. I think you’ll find the style extraordinarily comfortable and flattering.”

Liz takes it all in. In silence. 

She wanders back into the living area. A large arrangement of flowers adornd the table. They are so vibrant they don’t even look real, but as she bends to sniff them, the velvety petals tickle her nose and the fragrance of jasmine, rose, and eucalyptus entrance her. 

She straightens to find Red watching her. He’s measuring her reaction. She takes a step over to the galley and finds one of those fancy, climate-controlled wine coolers, filled with an assortment of wine and champagne. “Oh!” She says, opening the door and pulling out one bottle and then the next. “There’s wine! And good wine!” 

Red chuckles and opens another cabinet above the wine cooler to reveal an assortment of reds and other liquors. “Yes, we should have plenty of hooch to get and stay good and tight for the whole voyage.” He closes the cabinet, then claps and rubs his hands together. “Well, shall we cast off?” 

He starts back up the steps of the companionway and calls back over his shoulder, “Did you say you sail, Lizzie?” 

“Um. No. Not really. I mean, I went a couple times when I was visiting friends in Boston, but growing up in Nebraska I didn’t really have much occasion to sail.” 

“Uh huh,” Red says. He extends his hand to help Lizzie up into the cockpit. It is a decent size. Were they entertaining, it could probably fit eight to ten people around on the benches. But as Lizzie takes Red’s hand and stands before him and the big, silver wheel of the boat, it feels cramped. “Well, first thing in the morning, we will have to give you a lesson. In the mean time, why don’t you rustle us up something to eat from the galley while I get this old girl out on course?” 

“Oh, Red,” Lizzie says, frowning and wrinkling her forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t cook either.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “A sweet dream with a .45 and a nightmare in the kitchen!” He says this to no one in particular, or as though they have other guests who would be amused by Lizzie’s shortcomings of domesticity. “Of course you don’t cook, Lizzie. Well, how about popping the cork on this bottle of champagne, then?” 

“That, I can manage,” she says. She smiles in spite of herself. This shouldn’t be fun, she thinks picking up the champagne bottle from the ice bucket. This absolutely should not be fun, and yet he’s spared no expense to try to make me comfortable. It’s almost sweet. And he looks so pleased with himself. 

He hops off the side of the boat onto the dock, spry as a mountain-goat, and unties the ropes from the cleats on the dock, at bow and stern. Tossing them over the edge of the boat, he hops back on and assumes his place behind the wheel. 

Lizzie watches, one eyebrow raised, as he falls into this role with even more ease than she has seen him play all his other parts combined. 

Red starts up the engine, flips the shift into reverse and starts to navigate the boat out of the slip. Lizzie tears the foil off the bottle, and deftly pops the cork out into the water. She pours a glass and hands it to Red before filling and taking her own. “For you, Captain,” she says with dry irony. They clink glasses and sip. 

It’s gotten dark. The engine hums quietly beneath them. Lizzie squints at the green and red lights on the water as Red negotiates their path out of the harbor and into the bay. “So, you can drive this thing in the dark?” Lizzie asks. 

“Oh, yes, Lizzie.” Red says, nodding with his lips pressed together in a smile. “They used to let me ‘drive’ all manner of boat after dark during my tenure in the Navy. And this little thing has so much computer assistance guiding her along it is practically like she will sail herself. We’ll motor tonight for a bit, and in the morning we’ll put up her sails and see what she’s got.” His hands are light and easy on the wheel and his face looks relaxed and cheerful. He flicks at some switches and a screen lights up with a compass, map, and depth perception.

Red fishes around inside his suit jacket. Something about the motion of Red’s fingers brushing against his chest as they look around for whatever it is he wants, sets off a confusing throb in Liz’s ribcage. He produces a cigar case. He takes out a cigar and sets about snipping off the end with a silver cigar cutter. He offers one to Liz, then says, “Oh that’s right. You don’t partake,” when he notes her upraised eyebrows. He puffs away, his lips pulsating against the cigar as he fires it up. He exhales, “Mmm, mmm, mmm,” he hums.

Liz rolls her eyes and sits down on the bench. 

As they move out into more open waters, the breeze picks up. Liz shivers. “Are you cold?” Red asks. “Why don’t you go down below and grab a jacket or a sweater. There should be all manner of foul weather gear down there.” 

“Do you want anything?” 

“There should be a blue windbreaker in the closet to the right in the bedroom, if you don’t mind. And some cheese and crackers would be divine.” 

She goes back down into the cabin. In the bedroom, she grabs a magenta sweatshirt for herself, then goes to Red’s closet to get his jacket. Without even thinking, she brings it up to her face and smells it, but takes it away quickly from her nose and scowls at it in disappointment as she realizes it is new and not yet cloaked in his scent. 

She catches what she is doing and thinks, So what? I like the way he smells. There’s nothing wrong with liking a good, manly smell. 

She glances back and forth between the two beds. This is going to be interesting, she thinks. There was that one night, a week or so back, when they could only get one room. Red, ever the gentleman, slept on the couch, but there had been an entire room separating them. These quarters were just so close. There is only a couple of feet between these berths. She pulls the curtain across the rod a bit more, dividing the two sides. 

At least I know he doesn’t snore. 

She takes a deep breath as she turns towards the main room of the cabin. 

On her way through the bathroom, she notices a basket next to the sink. The counter is so small that the basket takes up almost the entire space. It is filled with lotions, creams, perfumes, oils, shampoo, conditioner, and little pots of makeup, all of which have names and writing in French that she can’t read. She opens a bottle of oil and sniffs it. It smells of opulence. 

She opens the drawer next to the sink and finds a zippered pouch. Picking it up, she opens it and gasps. There must be twenty lipsticks, glosses, and balms inside, just waiting to adorn her lips. She slides the cover off a tube of pearly, rose lipstick and twirls it up, glides it over her lips and smacks a couple times in the mirror. 

For the first time in days, she looks at herself in the mirror. Really looks. Her face is pale and sharp and there are dark circles under her eyes. Red is right, she thinks. I need to eat something. She rubs her lips together, blending the color evenly into them. 

She goes into the kitchen, and sets about finding packets of crackers. She picks out an assortment of cheeses and plops them and some grapes onto a tray. Red meets her at the top of the steps and takes the platter and windbreaker from her hands. He’s pulled out a little table from somewhere and they sit across from each other on the cushioned benches. Two oil lanterns have been lit, and cast a flickering glow in the space between them. 

“I see you found the lipstick,” he states, threading his arms into the jacket. He zips up. 

“I don’t know how you do it, Reddington,” she says. She reaches for her champagne flute which has been refilled. He says nothing, but he smiles. “Well,” she sighs in frustration, “How did you do it?” 

“Allow a man a shred of mystery, my dear,” he says. “Out here, you’re not an agent of the law. You’re not a FBI profiler. Try and relax a bit.” 

“Relax?”

“Yes, Lizzie. Relax. We will be back at work soon enough. You might as well enjoy the salt air, the gentle rocking of the waves, the stars. Some relaxation will do wonders for you.” 

“Red. I’m not one of the harem of women you have had fawning over you over the past two decades. I’m not a doll you can dress up, or a puppet you can compel to relax simply because you pull a few strings.” 

He tosses his head back to the night sky and laughs. “Oh, Lizzie. You do delight me. And you’ve made a lovely selection on the cheese plate. We’ll make a little gourmand of you in no time.” He pops a grape into his mouth. She watches his jaw move, then gulps the rest of her champagne. It fizzes in the back of her throat. 

Red refills her glass. He continues, and now his voice is sober, almost sad, “Of course I know who you are, “ he says. “Never before have I met anyone like you. I intend to spend the rest of my life, if necessary, righting the wrongs that I and others have done to you, Lizzie. The clothing, cosmetics and creams are inconsequential details to simply make you comfortable while we are waiting. But don’t worry for an instant that I don’t know you, because I do, and you can rest assured I will return your life to you. I know who you are.” 

Lizzie considers his words. Her head is light from the champagne, and his voice seems to swim in her ears, leaving ripples that are not entirely unpleasant, long after he has finished speaking. 

She had planned a follow up retort to her earlier statement about not being his plaything, but she finds herself silent, not knowing how to respond to his declaration. Her mind flashes back to the moment in the motel when she almost kissed him. Would he have kissed me back, she wonders, then shakes the thought from her mind, lets it get carried off on the breeze. 

Maybe it’s the champagne, but she is sleepy, maybe even relaxed despite her earlier insistence she would do nothing of the sort. It’s probably close to midnight when she says, “I think I’ll turn in.”

“Goodnight, Lizzie,” he says. 

“Will you be coming down?” 

“No. I could pull in closer to shore and drop anchor, but I would rather get some space between us and them. If I get tired, I can put her on autopilot and doze. I’ll be fine.” 

“Ok. If you say so. Goodnight, Red.” 

She steps down the stairs and through the cabin to the little bath and bedroom area, sliding the pullman door across the threshold. She uses the bathroom, following the directions on the diagram next to the head to figure out how to flush the damn thing. She slips into a set of pajamas, and then lies down on the bed. The mattress is firm, but as she sinks into it, it creates a little nest in which she curls her body. 

Ahhh, she sighs. Tempurpedic. Is there anything he doesn’t know about me? She wonders this, thinking back on the declaration he made up above, that he would set things straight, right wrongs, and give her her life back. 

It sounded nice. 

It almost sounded like a wedding vow.

Despite the fact that, as Red so astutely pointed out, she is no longer an FBI profiler, her brain clicks into work mode, though sluggish under the champagne. She considers the boat, his words, the little pots of elegant cream, the flowers. What is he trying to prove? She thinks about how he covered her with his jacket in the motel, how strangled his voice came to her when he said he wasn’t her parent in the car. She thinks of him crushing her back in that closet as he tried to keep her safe. 

And she remembers her fingers drifting over the ridges of scar tissue on his shoulder as she begged him not to shoot the girl. She had almost forgotten about that scar, in her shock and anger. She would have to remember to talk with him about it. He was still the only person who could give her answers. The scar proves it. 

Maybe she had been too harsh on him. She’ll apologize and thank him in the morning. He must have gone to great lengths to get all this stuff here, ready for them. 

It is almost like he is wooing her. 

She sits straight up in bed, his voice rippling through her ears in a resonant memory. I know you, he had said. 

It is almost like he is a man in love. 

She lies back and closes her eyes. I really must have drunk too much champagne, she thinks and passes out into a deep sleep, lulled by the rocking of the ocean beneath her.   
\----------------------------------

The next morning she is woken by Red’s laughter. As she tucks her hair back and stretches, she realizes he must be having a conversation with someone on the satellite phone. She jumps out of bed and finds him in the galley, frying eggs and bacon. He tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear, and uses his free hands to pour Liz a mug of coffee, which she accepts, curious about who is on the other end of the call. 

She sits down at the table. Red’s face grows serious, and his voice deep as he finishes the conversation, ends the call, and tosses the phone casually against the cushions, close to where Liz is sitting. 

“Who was that?” She asks. 

“An associate,” he answers. He busies himself with buttering a slice of toast and plating it with two eggs and four strips of bacon. “Extra crunchy, which is just the way you like it, if I’m not mistaken?” 

“You’re not mistaken,” she says. 

“Now, Lizzie, you will need your strength for your sailing lesson. You must eat. I will not take no for an answer.” 

“Ok,” she says slowly. “I’ll eat every last bite if you tell me about the phone call.” 

“Ever the little negotiator aren’t we? You are lucky that coercion is simply adorable on you, Lizzie. But eat first.”

She eats all the bacon, some of the egg, and most of the toast. She gets up to help herself to a second cup of coffee, and says, “Ok. Talk, Reddington.” 

“I have some news,” he begins, all joking put aside. “That was an associate of mine who I had retained to look into that situation back at the hotel. With the girl.” He pauses here to make sure she is following along, which she is. “Lizzie, that girl was actually a woman. An agent. Former KGB who had gone rogue.” 

Lizzie tries to make sense of this. The girl Red had shot was not some innocent tweaker who got caught up in something she didn’t ask for. She was a full-fledged criminal. Like Red. Like her. Once again, Red had saved her from something she didn’t even know threatened her. But. . . 

“I don’t understand,” she begins. “Former KGB?” 

“Yes,” he says. His lips are pressed tight together as he nods his head. His green gaze is bathing her in a stern sorrow, and all at once she puts together all the pieces. He doesn’t have to spell it out for her, but he does. 

“They are looking for Masha Rostova,” he says. “Apparently, my dear, there is quite an enormous price on your lovely head.”


	8. Chapter 8

She takes the news better than he expects. 

Which doesn’t mean she takes it well, per se, but she doesn’t vomit or pass out or anything dramatic. But that’s his Lizzie; stronger than anyone would ever guess from her delicate exterior. 

“I should have known,” she says. “All this time I’ve been worrying about being on the Most Wanted List, and the full force of the FBI coming after us. I never even stopped to think. . .” She trails off, shaking her head. 

“You’ve been in shock,” he replies, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder. “And there are still pieces to this puzzle we are yet to discover.” 

“Red, if they want me, that means the bounty for you will be even higher. They must know I’m with you, that you’re helping me.” She’s sitting in her pajamas at the table, her knees drawn up to her chest. He can’t help but think how adorable she looks. 

He can’t help himself.

And listen to her! She’s worrying about him! She is probably the first woman in over three decades to be expressing a selflessly concocted word of concern about him. 

It melts him, honestly. It melts him. 

“How can you be smiling at a time like this?” She demands of him. 

He clears his throat and heads over to do the breakfast dishes. “Lizzie, there is always a price on my head, such as it is. At this stage of the game, it is actually a little flattering that it has risen ever so slightly. I owe you a debt of gratitude, really.” 

“I don’t think you should be joking about this.”

“I’m not joking,” he says. 

And he is serious. 

But he also has Lizzie out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on this pretty, little boat. “It’s a glorious day, and I need to teach you how to sail. Lord knows the fumes from the diesel fuel are gnawing at my sinuses, which as I’ve told you are quite delicate.” 

“I don’t remember you ever telling me that,” she snaps. She’s not amused. But she ate her breakfast, and she’s risen from bed with a bit of color in her cheeks. He’d dreaded letting her know the Russians were after her, but it actually seems to have been just the thing to get her head back in the game. Got her energy up, as his grandmother used to say. 

“Well, anyhoo,” he says. “Go get yourself ready for the day and meet me above. And Lizzie, grab yourself a piece of fruit. We don’t want you getting the scurvy. Nasty stuff that.” 

Red climbs up into the cockpit, and assumes his place behind the wheel. He’s eager to get the sails up and feel the wind fill them. He is also eager to get the image of sweet Lizzie in her pajamas out of his head. 

You’re in love with her, he’d finally admitted to himself, under the stars the night before. Of course he’d known it for months, but it was the first time he’d said it out loud, after he was certain she was asleep. 

“Oh, Elizabeth,” he murmured to the inky night sky. “I love you.” 

He’d come close to telling her when she questioned him about the lipstick and accused him of thinking she was just some doll he could dress up. 

As if. 

His head had whirred with all the words he could say, and then he simply came out with “I know you,” because it was true, and it was as close to telling her he loved her as he dared to come. 

Love engenders a vulnerability that Raymond Reddington cannot risk, which is why he has not been in love since the demise of his marriage. And anyway, that wasn’t really love, at least not the all consuming force of nature he feels towards Lizzie. 

Now he finds himself at an impasse. He is a man on the brink, a man with everything to lose. He is also a man familiar with despair and loss. What he is not, is a man who has ever been in so precarious a position before, living with his heart beating outside of his body, feeling utterly exposed. 

He could stand losing it all. He could even stand having Lizzie squash his stupid, aching heart. At least it would put him out of his misery. But he can’t stand the thought of another hair on her head coming to harm. 

He must stay sharp, focused in order to keep her safe. So, for all intensive purposes, this love must be stuffed down, buried, stowed away in deepest compartments for both of their sakes and safety, used only as fossil fuel to provide energy for what must come next. 

The next battle. 

LIzzie comes up a little while later, dressed in a pair of jeans and tee shirt. He tries not to feel disappointed she spurned the Guayabera dress. Any disappointment he may have felt, however, is quickly replaced with pride and pleasure as he sees how readily she learns the art of sailing. 

She takes to it as though she’s been doing it her whole life, and they easily fall into a rhythm. She’s never in his way, and is always ready to tighten a sheet or clamber up to the bow to untangle a line. She moves about the craft with grace and ease, learns all the nautical terms and uses them deftly. He can tell her mind and body are hungry for something on which to focus, for exercise and exertion. She almost seems to be enjoying herself, he thinks. 

“Why, Lizzie! You’re a natural. It’s almost as though we are dancing out here!” He tells her that evening. “We’re just about ready to tac again my dear, and then we will find a quiet inlet in which to camp out for the night. There are a couple fillets down there just begging to be grilled. Do you eat steak, Lizzie? I find there is nothing like it after a good day on the water.” 

“I eat steak,” she says. Her eyes are focused off in the distance. He can feel her brain working, but can not read her mind. 

“Ready about,” he says. She sits up and prepares to loosen her sheet from the cleat, where it is tied off, tight and neat. He gives the word, and she lets it go. The boom of the mainsail swings over their head and they reposition themselves to compensate for the new angle of the boat as the keel dips in the opposite direction. “Hand me that winch handle, would you dear,” he says. 

She picks up the heavy, metal device and hands it to him. As he puts it into the winch and tightens up the jib, he considers making a joke about her being a wonderful winch wench, but thinks better of it. 

She’s not in a joking mood. He can respect that. 

He also respects the efficiency with which she coils up the lines they are not using, neat as a pin. And he’s trying not to respect the gorgeous curve of her ass as she bends to do it, and the pert little mounds he glimpses under her shirt as it falls away from her chest. Love and lust collide like thunderheads in his gut and groin. 

He glides the boat in towards shore, but not too close. The sails come down and he puts out the anchor, making certain it holds fast. Darkness falls around them. 

Red takes a shower and changes his clothes in the cabin, which until now he has not spent much time in. He thinks of it as Lizzie’s space. 

With the door closed, he looks around him at the evidence of her presence. Her bed is made, and she has tucked her pajamas neatly under her pillow. He smiles at this. Her fastidiousness pleases him. He runs a hand over the blankets on her berth, plucks her shirt out from under the pillow and inhales. 

He is instantly hard as the winch handle Lizzie had handed him earlier. He rubs the softness of her shirt against his cheek, then places it back under her pillow, pulls himself up straight and takes a deep breath to dissipate the swelling in his trousers. It takes a few moments of thinking about Resslar before he is collected, ready to go back out and face her, cook her dinner. 

When he joins Lizzie in the galley, she has an open bottle of wine and is pouring two glasses. She hands him one. He sniffs, then sips the burgundy liquid. Holding his glass up to his face, he swirls the wine around and watches it slide down the edges. “Mmm,” he sighs. “Well chosen, Lizzie. Excellent legs on this variety.” She rolls her eyes at him, but he sees a corner of her mouth tug up into a half smile. 

He is pleased to watch her devour the meal he prepares. They eat up on deck. Their amicable conversation relieves him, but he continues to be wary of the barrage of questions he knows lurk just beneath. 

“Red,” she begins. “Tell me about my mother.” 

“Lizzie, I’ve told you about your mother,” he says. He knows this answer will not placate her. Time to switch over to scotch, he thinks.

“Is she alive?” 

“I don’t know,” Red answers. Lizzie gets up from where she is sitting and repositions herself on the bench next to him. She leans towards him. 

“I want answers, Red. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I always knew I was adopted, and I found peace with that because Sam filled my life with more love than I ever could have asked for. He was everything to me. But now,” she trails off for a moment and places a hand on his thigh, looking at him earnestly. She licks her lips, then continues, “It’s like everything I’ve ever known about who I am or where I come from is in question. I need answers,” she says. She looks out over the inky water. “I need answers, Red,” she repeats with a little more force. 

He takes her hand from his thigh. He looks at her palm, at the scar, runs his own fingers lightly over it. With a dreamlike slowness, he raises her hand to his lips. 

He can’t help himself. 

He presses her flesh to his mouth. 

He can’t help himself. 

His eyes roll back in his head as he rubs her hand against his cheek, holding it there and wishing he could stop time at this very moment. If only he could climb inside the capsule of this moment and stay there with Lizzie’s hand against his skin. It would be enough. 

It would atone. 

He opens his eyes to find her looking at him with an expression that can only be described as curious. But she has not taken her hand back. He lowers his hand to his thigh, but does not let it go. 

“I know you need answers, Lizzie,” he says. “I need answers too. We’ll get them. It might just take a minute.”

At this she does snatch her hand away from him. She stands and pounds her fists against her thighs.

“The waiting is killing me!” She cries out into the night sky. “I’m used to getting results, to getting things done. All this sitting tight and waiting is agonizing!” 

Yes, he thinks. Agonizing. Isn’t it though. 

“I’m sorry I can’t speed things up for you,” he says evenly, hoping his voice does not tip his hand in regard to the thick erection growing against his leg. Her skin against his face had awakened every nerve in his entire body. It is difficult to imagine himself worthy of atonement when he is sitting there, trying to hide his tenth hard on of the day. He doesn’t have to worry, though. LIzzie is elsewhere in her mind, brooding, her back to him. 

He shifts slightly, trying to comfort himself, and being careful not to stimulate things any further. He needs to find the scotch. It is time to switch to scotch. 

For a moment, he enjoys the silhouette of her shoulders against the night sky which does nothing to calm his raging cock. She pivots; faces him. 

“I saw the scar,” she whispers. 

He blinks. 

“When we were in the hotel room, and you had your gun pointed at the girl. I was trying to talk you out of it. You hadn’t put your shirt on yet, and I saw it.” 

He can still feel the echo of her fingers dancing over the lace of his wound. He’s been wondering if she remembered and if she put the pieces together. 

She sits next to him again. “You were there. That night? Weren’t you?” 

“Yeah,” he growls. “I was there.” 

“You,” she says, reaching for his hand. “You saved me that night.”

“Yes,” he says. He squeezes her fingers. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

He shakes his head. “Oh, Lizzie,” he begins, but he can’t finish the sentence. He’s blinking back tears as he remembers the little girl he carried out in his arms, and tries to reconcile the fact that little girl is the woman sitting in front of him. The woman he loves. 

Definitely time to switch to scotch.

She leans into him, as she has done many times before, and he accepts her in his arms, as he has done many times before. 

But as he kisses the top of her head, he realizes there is something different in this embrace, and it’s not just that his dick is demanding attention. As she threads her arms around him, he realizes the balance has shifted. The pendulum has swung once again. 

It is she who is comforting him in her arms. Every time, it has been the other way around. He has taken her in to comfort her, all the times after Tom, after shooting Connolly. He has always been the one providing warmth and succor. But now it is she who is holding him. 

She parts slightly from him. Her lips are parted and her eyebrows are raised in wonderment. Her hand drifts up to the collar of his shirt. She unbuttons several more than the two buttons which are already undone. She gently pulls his arm out of the sleeve and pushes him so his back is to her. 

With fingertips that are almost lighter than the night air, she touches him. She explores the ridges of his flesh as an astronaut might explore the craters of a distant planet, with thorough attention. 

And he feels as though he is in the airless void of outer space, breathless and levitating at her touch. 

“Lizzie,” he begins. 

“Shhh,” she says. His back is still to her as she puts her arms around him, and then she does something he will forever wonder if it actually happened, or if it was a dream. 

She kisses his shoulder.

He feels the benediction of her lips and makes a mental note to buy the woman a lipstick factory so her beautiful, succulent mouth can always be adorned in the best goop that money can afford. 

And then it’s over. 

She falls away from him and he shivers in the night air. 

“You never let me thank you,” she whispers. 

“No.” 

“Thank you.”

Before he can tell her she is most welcome, she stands up. “Good night, Red,” she says. 

She leaves him sitting there, awestruck. He can hear her ready herself for bed as he gets the scotch and a glass. Then he goes back to his seat and lights a cigar, puffs on it in complete and total frustration. 

It is exhausting. Loving her is taking up every ounce of his self control and confounding him. Not to mention the eternal aching of his crotch. It doesn’t help he hasn’t been sleeping. Sleep is always difficult for him, but without Dembe nearby it is virtually impossible. 

He sips and smokes late into the night. 

Finally he lays back, puts a cushion behind his head and looks up at the sky. 

“What have you done, Lizzie,” he says aloud to the stars. He says it in the same way he said it on that day she arranged for him to be taken into custody, the day she realized she’d made a mistake, the day she realized they were “stuck” with one another. What have you done to me? 

He can’t stand it any longer. He unbuttons his shirt and unzips his pants. He thrusts his hand into his boxers and grabs his cock. He tries to stroke himself slowly and gently, as she no doubt would do, but he can’t contain himself any longer. His hand glides quickly over himself. 

He imagines her rising out of the sea next to him, like a nyad from a myth because this love can only be the tragic, unearthly love of mythology. He imagines the heat of her lips wrapping around him, granting him relief from this torture. He cups his balls in his other hand. “Oh, Elizabeth,” he moans as he comes in hot spurts onto his stomach. 

He lies there, pulsating in the release for a few moments. 

But the victory is short lived. 

As he cleans and buttons himself, he comes to understand he could abuse himself a hundred times a day and it will do no good. 

He’s sick with longing. Poisoned with it, through and through. 

He doesn’t know what to do about it. 

And not knowing exactly what to do is brand, spanking new territory for Raymond Reddington. 

He’s definitely going to need some more scotch.


	9. Chapter 9

He wakes with a thick head and stiff neck, but his cock is soft for once, so the hangover is well worth it. He’d slept maybe two or three hours, and now he has to make himself presentable. He needs to find an asprin, and put something in his stomach to sop up the bile and leftover scotch roiling around down there. 

It’s going to be a long day. 

And a hot one. He’s already sweating and he hopes he will not reek of the bottle of scotch he consumed last night, in misery and despair, by himself on the deck, as it bleeds back out of him through his pores. 

He remembers a dream. A dream in which Lizzie ran her cool fingers over the heat of his skin, and kissed his shoulder with her very own lips. He hasn’t dreamed since he was a boy. Did I really dream that? He wonders, struggling to get his head in the game. 

The pieces come back to him in fragments-- holding Lizzie’s hand to his cheek, letting her know he’d been the one to carry her out of the fire, and her slow undressing and worship of his shoulder. Her embrace. Her gratitude. He rewrites the story for his aching brain and he smiles. 

Then frowns. 

He’s in virgin territory here, and he doesn’t know his next move. 

\---------------------------------

She puts on the dress. 

It is no small feat, although it is apparently a very small dress, and it requires she shave her legs for the first time in a couple weeks. And if you’ve never shaved two weeks worth of fuzz off your legs in the tiny shower/bathroom stall of a boat, while gently rocking in the water, then you are lucky.

Her hands are steady. She doesn’t cut herself. Much. 

Luckily, a fortune’s worth of creams and oils lie within her reach, and she avails herself of one that smells like jasmine and touts the healing benefits of vitamin E on the label. 

She doesn’t want to hog the bathroom. Red hasn’t been down yet, and she wants to be considerate. But she does take a few minutes to put on a light amount of makeup, which she found in the drawer next to the lipstick pouch. She pulls her wet hair back and returns to the bedroom area to grab the dress, trying not to track the wetness from the head with her. 

She opens the slim closet and picks the dress of light blue, pinstriped seer sucker with buttons from top to bottom. For a moment she ponders the closet. Like everything else on the boat, it is compact, only about 18 inches wide, and maybe four feet deep. Hopefully we won’t need to use this as a hiding space, she thinks. She remembers her hands on Red’s shoulders in the closet over his bathrobe, and then again last night, on his skin.

Seeing his scar. Touching it. Pressing her lips to it, but for a moment. 

She can’t explain what it did to her, and she urgently wonders what it did to him. 

He was there, she thinks again. She’s not sure if the thought keeps catching her because it is coupled with the realization that he saved her, or that he has answers. 

She’s always known he has more answers than he is letting on. 

One way or another, she is going to get those answers. 

Then of course, there is the realization that he cares. He’s always been his asset, and she has assumed that he has more or less considered her the same. But the way he looked at her. The way his breath hitched when she examined his shoulder, the look in his eyes. He has to care, doesn’t he? 

She slips into the dress and buttons it up. It is much shorter than anything she would normally wear, a full eight inches above her knees. She tries to get a look at herself in the mirror. Her legs are pretty pasty, but the sun will cure that. 

Red was right; the fabric is nice and cool, and she has woken to a steamy morning. It is getting hotter as they get closer to the tropics. 

\---------------------------------

“Lizzie, you’re wearing the Guayabera!” Red exclaims, ignoring the pounding in his head that begins anew at his own voice. She looks lovely, if a bit uncomfortable. Her legs are glistening, if a bit pale. And she is smiling at him, if a bit ironically. 

That’s my girl! His spirits rally, and their little cheer awakens his sleeping cock. It twitches, very interested in the sight of Lizzie in a very short dress. Oh, you again, Red thinks, trying not to glance down at his groin in annoyance. 

But she does look tantalizing. 

He would take her in his arms right this moment, and damn the rest of the world, if it weren’t for the horrendous stench he is certain is on his breath. 

“You look wonderful, Lizzie,” he croons. “I trust you slept well?” 

“I did. But Red, what about you? You look like hell. Did you sleep at all up there?” Her words are accurate, he knows, but they still sting. There she is so fresh and dewy, all that creamy skin on display for his aching eyes. And here he is looking about as tortured as he feels. “You know there are two beds down here?” 

“Yes. Well, I like keeping an eye on things up above. Plus there is nothing quite so fine as a night under the stars. Anyway, I’m fine,” he says. “Nothing a shower and some breakfast won’t fix.” 

“If you say so,” she says. Her voice and face are dubious. 

He slips into the head and slides the door shut. He needs to get them to Mexico. He needs Dembe. He needs to back off the scotch and get some fucking sleep. He needs to get off this boat and put some space between him and Lizzie. He needs to be someplace where he can shut a door and be alone in perfect silence, someplace where he cannot smell her even one bit. 

Because this is going to fucking kill him. 

What is that anyway? Jasmine? 

He undresses and turns on the water for his shower, thinking if he ever needs to torture someone again, he will simply put them on a small boat for a few days with Lizzie. Surely, just a few hours would be enough to cull any truth he wanted from his victim.

He’s almost angry as he washes himself, getting into a good lather. But then he catches the little bottle of soap Lizzie must have used, and he picks it up, and he brings it to his nose, and there it is-- that lavender and vanilla aroma that gets him every time. 

He rubs a little of the soap on his arm, then leans the arm against the wall of the shower, and puts his head against it, as he takes himself in his other hand. A preemptive strike, he thinks as he moves his fist up and down in almost wild motion. 

It doesn’t take long. He smells her soap, and he strokes, and he closes his eyes, and he imagines his mouth on her. He would bruise her everywhere with his kisses. He holds his breath as he climaxes in silence but for the hiss of the water which is now cold. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Lizzie makes breakfast. He comes out to the galley sniffing in surprise and her culinary exploit. 

“Eggies in a basket,” she says. She holds out a plate to him with a beautiful egg fried into the center of a slice of bread. She was vigilant over the stove, eager to impress and not burn. 

“I thought you didn’t cook,” he says. He takes the plate and sits with it. 

“I don’t. This is one of the three things I know how to cook. Sam used to make it for me.” With a spatula she slides a thick slice of Canadian bacon onto his plate. She pours him a mug of coffee. He looks exhausted. Almost ill. “Rough night?” 

“I don’t sleep well without my bodyguard,” he says, sounding tired and defeated. “But I will be just fine after this lovely breakfast you’ve made me, Lizzie.”

“I can’t imagine how much you must miss Dembe,” she says. 

“Mmmm,” he replies, his mouth full. He doesn’t elaborate. For once, there isn’t some jaunty story to follow. Liz is learning Red is a man of few words when it comes to subject matter close to home. She can respect that. 

She smiles at him, as she sips her coffee. He eats rapidly. 

“We need to get going,” he says. “It’s not safe for us to linger too long in one spot.” 

“I’m ready when you are,” she says. 

They make good time, getting the anchor up, and getting out of the little inlet. Lizzie finds immense enjoyment in the physical exertions of sailing. She’s actually quite competent at it. She likes the way Red looks at her, pride and satisfaction in his face, as she trims a line or casually throws out a nautical expression.

At one point, Lizzie catches a series of silver glimmers not far from their boat. She cries in excitement, “Oh, Red!” 

He is instantly at her side. “What is it?” He utters in a gruff voice. He grabs her wrist and shoves her back towards the companionway, where she bumps her head against the boom. She looks down and sees he’s drawn a gun. She was not even aware he was armed during their voyage. 

His face is severe as he contemplates the horizon. “What did you see? Where are they?” He asks again, his tone forceful. 

“Red,” Lizzie says. She creeps to him and puts a hand on his arm. “It was a pod of dolphins.” 

“Don’t do that again, Lizzie. I thought. . . well it doesn’t matter what I thought. Just don’t. . . “ His voice is enraged, then trails off. He puts his gun back in the waist of his trousers and rubs his face with both hands. 

“I won’t,” Lizzie whispers. “I’m sorry.” She suddenly feels foolish, half naked standing there in that stupid dress. Red turns to her, shakes his head, and opens his arms. 

“Come here,” he says. She obeys his command, partly because she is a little scared and partly because she wants to feel his arms around her. 

He tucks her into his arms, kisses the crown of her head, and then tilts her face up to him. He kisses her forehead and her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Lizzie,” he sighs. “I’m sorry.” He chafes her arms, then takes her face in both hands. “Look at me, Lizzie,” he says. 

The late afternoon sun has gilded his lashes. His green eyes are rimmed with red and full of tears. He looks like he might start sobbing. Or maybe Liz is just projecting because she feels her throat fill with the ache of tears. 

“It’s ok,” she whispers. She touches his face, puts her arms around his neck. 

“No,” he says. He shakes his head, purses his lips. “It is not ok. Elizabeth, if anything happened to you. . .” She knows he refers to those who would bring harm to Masha. 

“It didn’t. It was just a pod of dolphins. I’ve never seen them in nature before. I got excited. I’m so sorry I scared you.”

“Stop apologizing. Please.” He takes her hands from his neck, brings them to his lips. He kisses her wrist where he had roughly grabbed her before. “Are you, did I hurt you?” 

“No, Red, I’m fine. Totally fine. ‘Ship shape,’ as someone told me they used to say in the Navy.” She smiles up at him. She wants to make this better for him. “But you aren’t fine. You need some sleep.”

“Lizzie, if I ever hurt you, I don’t know how I would live with myself. You are right. I’m just exhausted. And sorrier than I can say.”

“I know how you can make it up to me,”

“Oh? How?”

“Sleep in the bed tonight. Please. I’ll stay up here if you don’t want to be near me. I’ll even hold a gun if it puts your mind at ease. But please, get some sleep in the bed. They are really quite comfortable.”

“Yeah,” he mutters. “If it’ll make you happy.” 

“It will.” She says. And maybe it is because she just got a head up on Raymond Reddington, the nefarious Concierge of Crime, but she’s smiling again, this time in victory. She would like to know how they used to say “Haha, I win!” in the Navy.


	10. Chapter 10

He makes dinner. 

In such a short time, their lives have fallen into a simple cycle of domesticity. They sail. They chat. They drink wine. He cooks. For a man who loves to be served, he finds cooking for her enchanting. He almost feels naked without a dishtowel on his shoulder. 

He learns she is not allergic to shellfish, so he makes a pasta with shrimp in a white wine, garlic butter reduction. He may be exhausted and completely at the end of his tether, but he can still cook a decent meal.

Lizzie sits on deck and he is down in the galley, chatting up with her from time to time. 

He’s agreed to sleep in the second bed. He’s agreed that he needs some sleep before paranoia and compulsion totally take him over. He almost hurt Lizzie, yanking her back like he did when he thought there was a threat to their safety. 

He agreed to appease her, but still, he tries to argue. 

“Lizzie,” he mumbles. “I’m fine. As I’ve said before, there will be plenty of time for rest when we get to our safe house.” He smiles at her, but it does not exactly do the job of inspiring confidence in either of them. “We pull into Ixtapa tomorrow night, and then the next day we’ll sail down to Acapulco. It is there we will leave the boat and travel by land.” 

“And then what?” She asks. She is eager to start the process of clearing her name so she can return to the states. 

“And then we sit tight and keep a low profile. We’ll move around a bit to play it safe. And being in Mexico will make it easier to get overseas, or even down into South America, if need be.” 

“More sitting tight?” She sighs, her frustration ebbing. 

“I’m afraid so. But rest assured, the gauntlet has been thrown and it is just a matter of time before the Cabal crumbles.”

“Why? Have you heard something?” 

“There has been some chatter picked up by my people. We will see what it all amounts to when we get back to shore.” He swirls a portion of angel hair pasta onto a plate. 

Angel hair.

It’s almost too much, he thinks. He brings the food up. 

“You’re going to turn me into a high-maintenance woman, Red,” she says as he sets a plate before her. 

He leans back and chuckles. “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” He says. The lamps are lit and flickering their orange glow around the cockpit. They sip a perky sauvignon blanc. “Lizzie I find it hard to picture you as high-maintenance. Although you could be anything you like and I will be pleased with you as long as you are wearing that absolutely fetching dress.” And I would still adore you, he adds to himself. 

“Salty dog,” Lizzie grins as she insults him. 

“Scurvy rascal,” he tosses back. He can’t help but smile. Despite the fatigue he feels in the marrow of his bones, or maybe because of it, he smiles at her. She tosses her napkin at him, sips her wine. He reaches for the bottle to refill their glasses and finds it empty. “Looks like we need another bottle.” He starts to get up, but Lizzie stands.

“No. Sit. I’ll get it,” she says. He sits back down, obedient as a puppy. He watches her as she deftly navigates the companionway. She returns a few moments later, struggling with the cork. He catches a luscious glimpse of her chest as she bends over the bottle, twisting madly at the corkscrew. 

“Allow me,” he says. He stands and reaches for the bottle. Their hands meet around it’s cool neck. Now, he thinks. I have to take her now. I have to devour her. I have to make her mine.

Their eyes meet. She smiles and shrugs in a manner that mocks her ineptitude with a corkscrew. 

The moment passes. 

He takes the bottle and opens it, refills their glasses. 

She sits back down, but he turns his back to her, looking out over the water. Blood rushes in all manner of crazy directions throughout his body. His dick is hard. His head is dizzy. His heart is pounding. This is it, he thinks. I’m going to die. 

But he doesn’t die. He drains his glass and reaches for the bottle. 

“Don’t drink too much more, Red,” Lizzie says. “I want you to get a good sleep tonight.” 

“Why Lizzie, you do care,” he says. 

“I do.” She states this simply, looking up at him with a sad, bewildered expression. 

“Does caring for me make you glum, sweetheart?” 

“No. Confused maybe. I don’t understand why it is so hard for you to accept.” 

He sits next to her. He strokes her face with his knuckles then allows his hand to slide through her hair. Angel hair, he sighs. 

“It is always hard to accept something of which one is thoroughly undeserving,” he grumbles. And even as he knows it is true, he can not turn away from her. “Lizzie,” he exhales. He buries his face in her neck. Her arms come around him. 

They embrace, then part. 

He places his hand on her chest, over her heart. He feels it dance beneath her skin. He lowers his face to her and kisses her there, then presses his ear to her to hear her heart beat. He can hear her collect her precious breath in a little gasp of surprise as he does this. He sits up to check her expression. 

“It’s ok,” she says for the second time that day. She’s looking at him, still with mixed emotion on her face and he wants to believe her that everything is, in fact, ok. 

He does. 

But he’s already hurt her so many times in her life. He could devour all the sin in the world and it would never make up for all he’s done. To her. To his love. To his very own heart. “You saved me,” she whispers as though she is reading his mind and trying to convince him against his thoughts. 

“Lizzie,” he rasps. “I’ve done things. What I’ve wrought, inflicted, and damaged. I could never have you know all I’ve done.” It’s all he can manage. He’s falling apart. It is agonizing. Physically painful. But her arms come around him and hold him fast. He continues, speaking into her hair. “There’s no way you could forgive me. There’s no way you could understand how or what I’ve done. And you shouldn’t. You are good and kind and--”

“And I killed for you too,” she interrupts, pushing away from him. 

“What?” 

“Connolly.” She whispers the name as though it might conjure up a ghost. 

“I don’t follow.”

“He said he was going to put you away, try you for treason, give you the death penalty. I shot him, and then it all came back to me. That night. Shooting my father. The fire. And I realized that you’ve been protecting me my entire life, Red. I don’t regret it. I will never regret it. I wanted to protect you too.”

There is nothing Red can say to that. To scold or admonish her would be cruel, petty even. He can’t help but wish things were different, that she hadn’t set that ball in motion. Because now she knows all. It makes it all the harder to protect her, to keep her at arm's length, to leave her be and go about his business. 

He nuzzles her face. The heat and silkiness of her brings back the memory of when he touched her after the whole Luther Braxton fiasco. He’d come closer than ever to kissing her as she writhed and wept under the drugs. But a gentleman does not take advantage of a drugged woman, so he didn’t. Still, his face had been so close to hers, as it is now. He sweeps his cheek against hers, nudges her nose with his. 

“Elizabeth,” he growls. “I’m going to kiss you now.” 

Her eyes had been closed, his caresses mesmerizing her, but they fly open. Her breath quickens. She looks almost panicked. He dips his mouth to the curve of her neck, nibbles her shoulder, feels her sigh under his lips. 

“Tell me not to. Tell me not to kiss you, Lizzie,” he whispers, catching her earlobe in his teeth. “Tell me not to kiss you,” he says again, begging her to be stronger than him, for her to push him away and make the sensible choice for both of them. 

He watches her consider this hollow offer with wide eyes, mouth agape, as she had considered his words that night when he asked her to tell him to go. 

She can’t say anything. 

Her eyes move back and forth across his face, but she does not speak. 

With the exception of waves lapping the hull of Always Gold, it is silent. 

So he does it. 

He kisses her. 

His lips are gentle, but decisive. His arms tighten around her, then relax as he finds relief with his lips on hers. It’s like he’s an astronaut who’s drifted the void of space, and run out of air. He’s finally rescued and resuscitated. 

He breathes at last. 

All the painful lust leaves him. The tension that had built up in him like a poison drains out of his pores, evaporates in the night air. He’s shocked that for once, he is not hard, just enchanted. 

She wiggles closer to him as her mouth opens and tongues mingle and twirl. Her lips were born for him, and him alone. It will atone, he thinks again, as he did a night or two ago. He wants with all his heart to believe it. 

Red tastes something salty and he understands they are both crying, the brine of their tears mixing as their cheeks press together, sliding down to his lips. His lips that are on his Lizzie. 

"So come my soul to bliss," he thinks. "Killing myself, to die upon a kiss." 

He’s never been a Shakespeare man, and the words enter his head unbidden. Unwelcome. Because with the Bard’s entrance in his tender head, he knows he has sealed not only his doom, but Lizzie’s as well.


	11. Chapter 11

“See the pyramids along the Nile, dah, dah, dah, duh.”

He’s singing in the shower. 

Lizzie stands outside the door to the head and hears Raymond Reddington singing in the shower. 

Fuck. She thinks. Desperation mounts her. This is going to be fucking awful. 

He slept like a bear in hibernation the night before. He closed his eyes, and drifted off and slept for a full seven hours in the berth, which she knows is longer than he has slept in ages. 

The little sedative she’d poured into his nightcap had worked. Like a dream, she thinks. 

The thought of drugging Red had come to her the first night on the boat. She’d been exploring the nooks and crannies of the cabin, and found a little stash of medicine. There was mostly OTC pain meds, bandages, and some sinus stuff, but there were also a few prescription bottles. She’d taken four capsules out of one bottle and stashed them away. For just in case, she’d thought, biting her lip. 

He’d been unravelling for the past few days, growing tired and haggard from his hyper vigilance over her. It was hard to watch. And then he frightened her, really frightened her, when he drew his gun and yanked her back when she saw the dolphins. The look on his face had been murderous, she remembers with a shiver as she glances down at the purple bruise on her wrist.

She knows he did not mean to hurt her. She knows he was being protective in the primal manner that comes from the deepest region of the brain. She knows this because it was the same snake, firing venom in her brain that made her shoot Connolly to protect Red. She was not angry with him, in fact she felt guilty for alarming him. But it served as a scalding reminder to her just how dangerous is the company she keeps. 

So, she didn’t want to hurt him. She just wanted him to get some sleep before he self-destructed and took her with him. 

Because she does care. 

And if him passing out allowed her to poke around in his office area, so be it. 

Liz goes back to the galley and finishes slicing up a mango, divides it into two bowls. She tosses in some raspberries and orange slices. Their provisions are dwindling, but they only have another two days on the boat. It will feel strange to be on dry land again, to have so much space around her. She feels almost lonely thinking about it. In the past five days, she has not been more than 32 feet away from Red at any given time. 

“Just remember when you close your eyes, you belong to me,” he croons. The water goes off, along with his operatic finale. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! 

She rehearses the words in her head. Red. We have to talk. Last night was lovely, but we have to stop this here and now. 

She fortifies herself for the grand entrance he will make as soon as he is dressed. She had gotten up and dressed before he even opened his eyes, so they’ve not seen each other yet this morning. More coffee probably isn’t the best choice for her, since she is already jittery, feeling awkward and eager all at once. 

I’m going to kiss you now.

His voice reverberates in her skull, taking her eyes for a breathless roll back in her head. She puts her fingers to her lips, remembering. The kiss was long and deep, filled with almost pathological desperation. 

I chose this, Liz thinks, tasting the mango on her fingertips. I chose him. After I shot Connolly, it was Red I called, without a moment’s hesitation. Not Tom. 

Even as she knows in her heart this is true, she wonders why, in the midst of their kissing, she was remembering the nightmare she’d had in the motel. Red, choking her. 

You can’t trust him. 

He will kill you. 

He is using you. 

Reddington is not who you think he is. 

He is not one of the good guys. 

She repeats the litany of things people, mainly Tom, have told her about Red. 

But they don’t know. They don’t know that Red is the man who carried her out of the fire, saved her life, and protected her for nearly three decades. They don’t know him. 

So, she repeats the litany of things about which “they” know nothing. 

He didn’t turn himself into the FBI for them. He didn’t take a pen in the corroded from them, and still smile into their faces like they were the only being on earth. He hasn’t cooked meals for them. He hasn’t procured pots of jasmine-scented cream, and pouches of lipstick for them. He did not rescue them from the Stewmaker, and gently rest a hand on their head. He has not held their hands all. those. times. He did not restore a 1940s music box for them. He did not hold them, kiss their foreheads as they wept, and whispered there’s nothing wrong with you. 

He did not eat their sin, as he had hers for years upon years. He had not killed for them, evaded the law for them, disappeared then risen from the ashes for them.

As he had for her. 

Some men bring flowers. Raymond Reddington does things. . . differently. His gestures of love carry with them a different weight and intent all together. 

They don’t know that. They don’t know him like I know him. 

She smiles at this, but her smile fades as the next thought quickly falls into place. 

Do I know him? She asks herself. She taps her lips, wishing she could turn off the part of her brain that already has her convinced she needs to shut this down. 

She stifles the urge to cry, wants the taste of his lips on her, wants him to bruise her with his kisses, wants his love and devotion tattooed into the marrow of her soul. 

Because this is it. 

When she pushes him from her, she will have no where else to turn, no one else’s shoulder on which to rest her head. The very prospect devastates. 

The previous night, they had kissed, and nothing more, for what seemed like hours. Finally, exhausted and breathless, Red agreed to go to bed. He seemed loath to let Liz out of his sight, even long enough for them to use the head and change, but he eventually acquiesced. 

“Get ready for bed,” she said. “I’ll tuck you in, then I’ll sit topside and guard things.”

She went back out to the galley to prepare his nightcap. She opened the capsules, poured the powdered contents into the drink, then quickly sprang up the companionway to toss the gelatin shells into the ocean. 

She mixed the drink with her index finger, then licked her finger clean. It tasted like Red. 

Red slid open the door to the bedroom. That was her signal. She strode back, glass in hand. 

When Liz came in, Red stood before her in a proper pair of pajamas, the old-fashioned kind with the shirt that buttons up. The top two buttons were undone and she caught a glimpse of his chest. 

She handed him the scotch. “Just one,” she said as he took it from her. 

“Now who is making who ‘high maintenance’?” He asked. “Oh, but you are good to me, Lizzie.” He sipped the drugged drink. “Kiss me goodnight, sweetheart?” 

Her heart skipped a beat whenever he called her “sweetheart”. She’d always felt patronized and foolish when Tom called her “babe,” but with Red, being called a sweet nothing felt all sorts of delightful. 

Knowing the sedative, enhanced with alcohol, would kick in fast, Liz went to him where he stood before his berth. She put her arms around him, tipped her face up to his, and slipped her hands under his pajama top. They kissed again. She stroked the skin of his waist and back, letting her nails press into him ever so slightly. This made him growl into her lips. He took her cue and slid his hands underneath the cotton top into which she had changed from the dress. He explored the band of her bra, as he bit her lips. She felt him grow hard in his pajama pants against her. 

“Can you feel what you do to me, Lizzie?” He groaned. 

She almost regretted giving him the sedative in his scotch, because it felt good, and she wanted a bit more, but just as he started to grind against her, he seemed to lose his footing. 

“Lie down, Red,” she said. She put him in the berth and covered him. She sat next to him on the edge, stroking his arm. 

“More,” he demanded, putting his hands around her neck and pulling her into him. “Don’t ever stop kissing me, Elizabeth,” he whispered, and the husk of his voice broke her heart into shards, and his hands around her neck triggered unwelcome memories. 

The dream came flooding back to her, and with it, a sense of doom. She tried to shove past it because she wanted to stay in this moment, here with Red. 

She pushed up from his chest to look at him. Heavy lids hooded his eyes as he gazed at her. He dragged her face down and kissed her again. “Oh, Lizzie,” he whispered. 

“Yes, Red,” she replied. 

“No. Don’t call me that. Call me Raymond when you are in my mouth,” he slurred. 

“Raymond,” she whispered back into his lips, and when she said his name all the confusion seemed to fade away and she was possessed with a certainty that this was right. I chose him. She licked his mouth, nipped at his cheeks, tugged on his earlobes with her teeth. She positioned herself so she laid on top of him, over the covers. He was still hard as a stone against her. She could feel it even through the layers of clothing and covers. 

“Elizabeth,” he moaned. “Let me hold you.”

“You are holding me, Raymond.” 

“No,” he sighed. His fingers of one hand fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, as the fingers of the other hand tried to extricate her from her shirt. She helped him, first unbuttoning his pajama top, then sitting up to remove her shirt and bra. She pulled back the covers and climbed over him. She pressed her breasts against his chest, tucked her head under his chin, and felt his arms encircle her. She rubbed her cheek against the golden hair on his chest, then kissed him over his heart. He grunted in pleasure as she bit his nipples, thrust his hips up against her. She reciprocated the pressure with her own hips, knowing, and feeling simultaneously relieved and regretful, that it would not last long. 

The pills had taken hold, and he was drifting. 

She had fully intended to dress and go search the office for anything that could get her closer to answers. About herself. About Reddington. About the Cabal. 

But she slid off of him, and then just sat there, watching him sleep. 

The only other time she had seen him sleep was when he was unconscious, after being shot in the chest. And then he had been covered in blood, writhing in pain. 

He laid nestled in the berth, snoring lightly. She pulled the covers up around him and started to put her shirt on. His voice startled her. 

“Lizzie,”

“Yes? What is it? I’m here Raymond?” 

“Under the table. In the compartment under the floor. Arm yourself. If you are going up above.” He was muttering and half asleep. Liz kissed his forehead and contemplated changing her panties before slinking out to the dining area. 

Sure enough, there was a compartment she’d not even noticed under their little, teak table. She put a finger in a little hole and lifted up on a slat of the wooden floor. What would normally be the bilge in any other craft was lined with guns of all shape and size. She plucked one out, checked the clip and safety. She poured herself a finger of scotch and climbed the steps to the deck. 

The lanterns had been put out, and it was dark. Not a habitual scotch drinker, she took tiny sips just because it tasted like him. She decided after this was all said and done she could take up drinking scotch when she needed to sense him. Because it had to end. It had to. 

She sat there on deck with the gun nearby, drinking and dozing until the sun came up. 

The water lapped at the hull, its gentle music reminding her of Red’s voice. 

Tell me not to kiss you, Lizzie. 

I should have pushed him away, she thinks now. Standing before two bowls of fruit and a pot of coffee, trembling, waiting for him like she is in high school and standing at her locker in the morning. 

The door slides open. 

“Good morning, Lizzie,” he says. For all his singing in the shower, his voice now is alarmingly sober, but his eyes are merry. He’s dressed in a crisp button down shirt and fresh trousers, his face freshly shaved. She’s grown used to him in this more casual attire, minus the fedora and three piece suit. 

“Hi,” she says. She smiles, in spite of the lump in her throat. 

“You were right, Lizzie,” he says. “A proper night’s sleep was just the thing. I don’t think I’ve slept like that since I was a boy. I feel refreshed. Ready for anything.” He closes the gap between them with two long strides. Now, standing before her, he cocks his head to the side and smiles. “Thank you.” He says. He bows his head and presses his lips into her cheek. Her arms encircle him. And she stands on tip toes to whisper in his ear.

“I think the dose of eszopiclone I put in your scotch might have had a little more to do with your good night’s sleep than me. But you’re welcome.” She stands down and grins at him. 

He looks at her, and she’s not certain what to expect, but he throws his head back and laughs. 

“Oh Lizzie! You crafty little minx, you!” He gives her a nip on the neck and pats her shoulder. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you?” He plucks a raspberry out of the bowl and puts it to her lips. She takes it in her mouth, giving his finger a little lick as she does. His eyes shut and he exhales with a deep moan that makes her stomach flip. He grabs her, crushes her against his body, and she can feel him, wants to feel more, but. . . 

“Red, we should be setting off, shouldn’t we?” 

“Ever the pragmatist,” he grumbles, but he shakes his head with a smile. “But yes, you are correct. I can’t wait to get you to Acapulco.”

She sighs. She has put him off for a bit. And then, at some point a talk will have to be had. But not yet. She’ll let this run at least until Acapulco. 

A little longer, she thinks. She leans against his chest, like she always does. And he kisses the top of her head, like he always does. Just let me have this for a little longer.


	12. Chapter 12

They sail. 

Red talks about all kinds of things, tells Lizzie stories about the Navy and hijinx he got up to in various ports of call. He talks about his travels around the world. He chatters away like a drunken lemur, and she listens with quiet incredulity he adores. 

Because he does. Adore her. 

Every moment since he took her lips in his he has been just about smothered by how much he adores her. But this is new territory. He can’t just buy her a diamond bracelet or a yacht and call it a day. This is Lizzie. His Lizzie. And with her, adoration means something more, something different. Something he has not quite figured out. Something that feels strange and illicit and frightening and wonderful all at once. 

But mostly illicit and frightening. 

She rolls her eyes at all the right moments in his stories, and makes sardonic responses when it really gets to be too much. 

But he keeps talking. 

Because he doesn’t know what to do. 

The kisses and caresses of the previous night may not have changed Lizzie’s reactions to his tales of debauchery, but it has shifted the dynamic between them. 

They both feel it. 

And they are both trying to sail around it, skirt it like a bell buoy, simultaneously reveling in and ignoring the change that has transpired in their relationship. 

Red has even more compulsion to reach over and tuck Lizzie’s hair behind her ear, to stroke her cheek, squeeze her thigh. He even pats her on the ass once while she is bending over to gather a line. 

“Watch it Reddington,” she snaps with a smile. 

“Ah, Lizzie. I’m simply enjoying the view.” Conventions such as “permission” never really stopped him from touching and embracing LIzzie before, but now when he does it, she smiles, reciprocates, looks him as she never has before. 

It’s as though they have just found each other. 

And Red pretends with all his might that they are not about to just lose each other.

They both pretend this. 

Around noon, Red leaves Lizzie in charge of the boat (Such a quick study, she really is able to sail the damn thing by herself already! He thinks, beaming with pride.) He makes them some little tea sandwiches, some with cucumber and goat cheese, and others have a olive tapenade that he scoops out of a glass jar with a small knife. 

He prepares these things with fingers that quiver with adoration, places them on a tray, and presents them to Lizzie. He pours white wine into two glasses. 

“It’s a good thing we are pulling in to Ixtapa tonight,” he says. “We are running low on provisions. If we can find a slip or a mooring for the night, we can get off and explore a bit. Maybe find some music or margaritas? If there is anything we really need, we can pick it up. And then tomorrow we are off to Acapulco. Oh, Lizzie I can’t wait to get you to Acapulco! There is this phenomenal boutique hotel with in room massages that are just to die for. You have never known heaven until you have had their mud and hot towel treatment. The stress simply melts away. I figure we can camp out there for a couple days, get our land legs under us before pushing on to the next stop.” 

He stops talking long enough to pop a little sandwich into his mouth. “My grandmother used to make them with cream cheese, but I find goat cheese to be just a bit more erudite, don’t you?” 

Lizzie says nothing. In fact, her face is very hard for Red to read as she sips her wine and bites into a sandwich. Has she started eating less again? He wonders with a twinge of anxiety. He calculates whether or not he should move closer to her on the turquoise cushion, but remains where he is. 

He fills her glass again. 

“Well, Lizzie, would you like to go into Ixtaca tonight? If you like, we can even get a room at a hotel. Have real showers in a real tub?” 

Her eyes are focused off in the distance. She closes them. Her shoulders rise as she takes a deep breath. When she opens her eyes, she looks at Red who squints back at her in the sun, a boyish grin on his face. 

“No,” she says. Then everything is quiet except for the boat slicing through the sea. 

She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, in a gesture that is so innocent and childlike, Red thinks his heart might melt right then and there. 

“No?” 

“No. I don’t want to get off the boat,” she says.

At this, Red does move closer to her. He extricates her hands from where they are clasped around her knees and brings them to his lips. “Talk to me, Lizzie,” he murmurs into her palms. 

“Red,” she whispers. He looks up from her hands, which he could spend the rest of the day adoring with kisses. He looks up and finds her eyes are filling with tears. He puts his arms around her and kisses her head. Her hair has grown lighter and is filled with tawny streaks from their days in the sun. She tilts her face up and encircles his neck with her hands, pulls him into a kiss that wastes no time becoming hard and hungry. When they part, the tears have run over and are spilling down her sun kissed cheeks. “Red,” she says again, clutching at his fingers. 

“What is it, Lizzie?” 

“You know,” she whispers. Even though they are out at sea and there is no one around for miles to hear them, she whispers. “We can’t do this. We can’t have this. You know that, right?” She strokes at his cheek. 

“Yeah,” he growls. He nods. He frowns. He furrows his brow in consternation. 

Raymond Reddington has never been a man to ignore reality. He is a man used to bending reality to suit his needs. He looks out over the water and tries to make his head work, tries to fire up all the possibilities and options and contingencies. He’s normally such a fast thinker, but as he watches the foamy whitecaps stretch out before his eyes, he cannot for the life of him figure this out. 

“If anyone finds out about us,” Lizzie begins. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. She understands, as does Red, that for anyone to know about them would open a door so wide and revealing, no army could keep them safe. Lizzie would be wanted not only for being Masha Rostova, but also for being his lover. Every resource he had would go into keeping her safe, and they would spend every moment of the rest of their lives on the run. She would never know peace. For him, this is already a constant. But for Lizzie to never know another moment’s peace seems a fate worse than death. She could be captured, tortured, held ransom. 

His empire would crumble. And his love would know no peace. 

Loving Elizabeth Keen creates an enormous loophole through which all manner of danger and corruption, much worse and much more sinister than that to which he is already accustomed, can and will crawl with ease. 

He’s said before that when you are in love you are powerless, you have no control. And for this reason, he’s chosen to keep his heart locked away, buried with the memories of everything else he has lost. But then there came Lizzie. Not for a moment had he deluded himself into thinking things could be different. Not for one moment. But her lips. . . 

“Lizzie,” he sighs, searching for words. They have been ignoring the boat as they try to talk. The sails start to luff and he puts a hand on the wheel to adjust their course. The sails fill once more with air, dragging them forward.

“That’s why I don’t want to get off the boat at Ixtapa, Red,” she says. “Because this, here is all we have. All we will ever have.” She opens her arms and gestures around them. “I wanted to wait until we got to Acapulco. Wanted to, oh I don’t know. But Red. We would basically be poison to one another. It has to end.” 

“But what if it didn’t have to be that way?” Even as he mutters the question, he knows how foolish it sounds. His chest aches with it. 

“Red, you are not a crazy man. You know there is not any way this could end well for us. What are you going to do? Date me? Parade me around town and show me off to your criminal buddies all over the world while we dodge bullets? Marry me? Make me Mrs. Reddington? Are we going to buy a house in the suburbs and have babies? I could never-- we could never bring another being into this world to be like me, hunted and extorted. No! Come on, Red! This ends. This has to end.” 

“But, Lizzie,” 

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Please.” Her eyes implore him. He bites the inside of his cheek, then runs his tongue over it as it starts to bleed. 

“Elizabeth. I’m so sorry.” His voice is ragged, but he collects her into his arms in a motion that is easy and smooth. “I never dreamed I would feel this way about anyone ever again. For decades my heart was dormant. Wooden. Useless. I suppose that is the way things have to be when you are in my business. Then I had to come back. I had to come back for you, but I had no idea who you had become, the woman you grew up to be. The FBI strapped me in that box and you came strutting in,” he chuckles remembering. “You came in and I realized it was hopeless. You’ve had my heart all along, Lizzie. If you only knew,” he struggles to finish the sentence. “I never thought you would, that you could feel anything towards me like I feel for you.” 

For a moment they sail in silence. 

He considers last night. The kiss. Her slender body lying atop his in the berth as he drifted off to sleep. What a clever little vixen to drug me! He thinks, adoring her all the more for her ingenuity. 

“Maybe I am a crazy man,” he starts. “Honestly, I feel like I’ve been going crazy for weeks, months even. Looking at you, watching you, wanting you. I’ve been half mad with it.” He grabs her hand and pushes it against his crotch. His cock is rock hard and screaming to be noticed. Her eyes widen. “Can you feel what you do to me,” he groans. “Oh, Lizzie,” he nuzzles into her hair, kissing her neck. Her hand strokes at his cock through his pants. “Tell me you feel it. Tell me you know what you do to me.” 

With a little more force than he would like, he drags her lips to his and kisses her fiercely. Her hand has remained where he placed it, stroking him in a gentle, almost absentminded manner. “Tell me,” his voice is smoky in her ear. “Say it. I have to hear you say it.” 

“Red, I,” she starts, but his mouth is savage against her lips. Finally he releases her enough so she can stammer, “I feel it. I know.” 

He lowers his head and bites at her breast through her shirt. She gasps and increases the pressure on his cock, wrapping a leg around his waist to give her some leverage. The way she is wrapping herself around him feels almost more amazing that he could have predicted. He wants her. He wants her now, here, straddling him on deck on the fucking turquoise cushion. He needs to taste every inch of her and fill her. If only he can come inside her with his mouth on his neck. He will be able to solve this. He will be able to figure out a way. 

He reaches to tear away her shirt with one hand, and to undo his trousers with the other. 

But the sails start to luff again, and Lizzie breaks away from him to adjust their course. She stands at the helm and Red starts to come to her, but she puts a hand out to keep him at arm's length. 

“Red,” she says, placing a palm on either side of his face. “Not like this. Please.” She looks almost frightened, but whether by his aggression or her own feelings he can not say. 

He clears his throat. With a sip of wine he collects himself. She is watching his every move. All I need is to fucking scare her again, he thinks. I’ll never live with myself. If the world could just see Raymond Reddington now. What a lark. 

“Ok, sweetheart,” he says. He hugs her and kisses her forehead as chastely as he can manage. He remembers the sense of peace he found against her lips the night before. Maybe he could find that again. Maybe it would be enough. It will have to be enough, enough for him to live on for the rest of his life. He sighs heavily, feeling strangled. “We only have two more days on the boat,” he says. 

“Then I guess we better figure out how to make them count,” Lizzie says. She smiles at him, no longer looking frightened but perhaps a bit mischievous. 

He smiles back at her and considers their course and where would be a good place to drop anchor for the night. No pun intended, he thinks. And when he laughs in spite of himself, it is with a very dry and bitter irony because monsters never get happy endings.


	13. Chapter 13

By the time they settle in the bay at Ixtapa, it is dusk. Lizzie climbs up on top of the cabin to bundle the sails into their cover, snug against the boom. Her arms come away from this task white with salt from the ocean spray of their voyage. 

Though neither are particularly hungry, Red sets about the pretense of making dinner. He could have made something a bit fancier, had he nipped into town for some fresh fish, bread, and chocolate, but there are some chicken cutlets that have thawed and he stir fries them with the last of their fresh veggies. 

It will suffice, he thinks. In all likelihood, neither of them will be able to eat anyway. 

Like Lizzie, he had decided he did not want to leave the boat. Not just yet. 

He mixes up a pitcher of gin and tonic, with plenty of lime and ice and a good chunk of sliced cucumbers. He’s looking for appropriate glasses into which to pour his concoction, when Lizzie comes down. 

“It smells good,” she says. 

“Are you hungry,” he asks over his shoulder. 

“Not really,” she replies. 

She comes up behind him as he reaches into the cupboard and slips her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his back. It’s a gesture that is at once familiar and foreign. He turns to face her and returns the embrace, kisses her cheeks and then her shoulders which have grown pink in the sun. 

“You got a little burn,” he says, sliding a finger under the edge of her tank top to peek at the white flesh beneath. “I think we have some aloe around here. I can rub some on you, if you like, to take the sting out.” 

“Mmmm, that would be nice. But after I shower. I’m all salty.” She lifts her arms out from her sides to show him the fine, white dust. In one graceful motion, he grabs her wrist, spins her around so her back is to him, but holds her hand still above her head. He runs his lips down her arm, from wrist to shoulder. She feels so warm, but she shivers when she feels his tongue dart against her skin, tasting the salt. 

He puts his other arm around her waist, pulls her closer, presses the full length of her to him, growing hard as they stand there against the counter in the galley. 

“You really want to waste time showering?” He murmurs into her ear. She wiggles her ass against him and he growls against her neck. 

“Wouldn’t you like to wash my back?”

“It’ll be a pretty tight squeeze for two of us in there,” he says dubiously. She spins around, puts her arms around his neck and pulls him into a kiss. 

“All the better to feel you close, my dear,” she whispers. 

“Supper will grow cold,” he says. 

“You really want to waste time eating supper,” she responds without missing a beat. 

Her eye contact is intense and unbroken as she reaches down to the hem of her shirt and begins to slowly pull it up and over her head. It was a bold move that makes her feel suddenly vulnerable, wondering why she did it, as she stands before Red in her bra. 

He bows his head slightly, as though in reverence and takes a long, slow breath in. He pushes her slightly away from the galley, so he can see her from head to toe. She’s still wearing a pair of shorts. 

“All of it,” he whispers. He pours himself a gin and tonic, sips, and looks away for just a moment. Then he looks back. She is still standing there, a question evident in her raised eyebrow. “All of it,” he says again. “Take all of it off, Lizzie. Please.” 

She takes a deep breath, feeling simultaneously shy and emboldened by his voice. She makes her fingers move to the button of her shorts. Undoes them. Slides them down over her hips and thighs. She steps out of the shorts and stands before him in her underwear, trying to stifle the urge to cover herself with her arms. 

“Everything,” he growls, cocking his head to take in every inch of her. She reaches in back of her to unhook her bra, then shimmies out of it, her breasts resting like two white doves on her chest. He takes a sip of his drink, shuffles his feet to accommodate the erection that has grown against his thigh. He nods his head at her panties. “Let me see you, sweetheart,” he says. Her fingers obediently come to the waistband of her underwear and slip beneath, but then linger. Aware of the effect she is having on him, she smiles. She is nearly naked, yet she has all the control. 

She takes a step towards the bathroom.

“Pour me a drink, Red,” she says without looking back. She knows his eyes have not left her, even as he steps to the counter and pours her gin and tonic into a tall glass. She tugs her panties down over her ass, let them slide to the floor and then steps demurely out of them, as she had her shorts. 

Red rushes to her, but still she doesn’t turn. He brings his arms around her, handing her the gin and tonic. She turns her head and sips it as he holds her to him. “Oh, Lizzie,” he moans. “I want you.” 

“I want a shower,” she says. “Doesn’t it feel uncomfortable to want?” She looks over her shoulder with a smile that tells him she is not going to give in on this one. She turns to him and runs her hands over his chest. “And you are still wearing so much clothing.” 

“I yield, my love. I yield,” he says, shaking his head. 

He lets go of her and unbuttons his shirt. She goes into the bathroom and turns on the water. Their water supply is undoubtedly low, so they will have to make it a quick one. Lizzie gets under the spray while it is still cool and begins to wet her hair, lather up her body with her soap. Red appears, heralded by the aroma that has tortured him for what seems like an eternity. He has stripped down to his boxers, which he loses as he steps into the closet-sized shower with Lizzie and her amazing smell. 

She is slippery as a mermaid as he takes her in his arms under the cool spray, but he holds her fast. His cock slides happily against her soapy thigh and he groans into her mouth as he kisses her. 

Lizzie reaches down to stroke him with one hand, reaches around to grab his ass with the other. She bites his neck, thrusting against him. There is barely any space at all between them. She threads her leg around his, eager to get even closer. 

As she runs her hand over his shoulder, she feels their scars align. She stops moving, stops thrusting, stops breathing even, as she looks up into his eyes. 

He touches her face. 

There are no words. 

Only this. 

Only this moment, which may be the only moment like it in the entire universe as their souls click like key and lock into one another. 

A look of panic washes over Lizzie’s face as she realizes all of the feelings Red has carried in his chest for so long. They jolt her into the moment as though she is holding something electric. It’s like she knew, like she always knew, but never did until this moment with their scars seared together under the water of this tiny shower. 

She looks up at him and shakes her head slightly, a sob gathering in her throat. Her breath is nowhere to be found and she can’t look away from his face. 

He sees her grappling and kisses her forehead. “It’s all right,” he sighs into her wet hair. “You’re going to be all right. Just breathe. Breathe, sweetheart. Just breathe.” He continues whispering to her as he washes her hair and rinses her body of soap and shampoo. He shuts off the water and wraps her in a towel, dries himself quickly and wraps the towel around his waist. He then returns to tend to her. 

He leads her out of the bathroom and into the forward cabin. He dries her from head to toe. Then he leaves for but a moment to get the hair brush. He gently pushes her so she’s sitting on her bed, towel dries then brushes her hair. He gathers the pitcher of gin and tonic which is sweating profusely, and refills their glasses. 

“You okay?” He asks. 

“Uh huh,” she nods. 

“Lizzie,” he begins. “We do not have to do this. I’ve wanted you for so long, sweetheart, but if you can’t--” 

“Stop talking.” She interrupts him. She places her glass on the bedside table and drags his face down to hers. They kiss as they lie down together on the bed. “I want this. I want you, Red,” she whispers, decisive as ever. 

An exotic tang of quinine from the tonic laces their kisses as they explore the fabric of each other for what is the first, and possibly the last time. The weight of this realization seems to descend upon their bodies, forcing them more closely together. 

Red finally allows his hands to touch every inch of her. They cup her breasts as he nips and suckles at her pretty pink nipples, then rubs his face into the creamy flesh of her stomach, licks her rib cage which arches in response to his tongue. 

Lizzie runs her fingers over the coarse hair of his thighs and scratches at his back. With a strength that surprises both of them, she pushes him off of her and onto his back. She climbs on top of him and nuzzles her face into his chest, inhaling his smell like an animal. She bites his neck until he cries out, then begins working her way down his chest, down further, over his stomach. 

With little kisses she teases and tickles the sensitive area around his throbbing cock. It is clearly in a tortured state and there is a pearly bead of the evidence of this torment on its quivering tip. Lizzie licks it, lightly at first, then takes the head in her lips. 

Red grinds his head against the pillow, moaning trying to hold back. He lifts his head so he can take in the rosy bud of her lips as they slide down and around him, just as he had imagined several nights ago. She looks up, meets his eyes as she works her mouth up to the tip and then back down, taking the entire shaft in her mouth. Part of him wants to grab her head and exact just the right speed and force to bring the moment to its crisis, but when he does wrap her hair around his fist, it is to stop her so he doesn’t explode in a huge gush down the back of her throat. Think of Ressler, think of Ressler, he chants silently to slow things down. He makes a mental note to send dear Donald a basket of fruit or muffins in gratitude for helping him through this precarious moment. Because it works long enough for him to turn the tables and mount Lizzie. 

Where Lizzie was ferocious, Red is gentle as he takes her body in his hands. Raymond Reddington has always been an aggressive and assertive lover, but something about the woman beneath him brings about tenderness he’s never known, coupled with ravenous hunger. It is a juxtaposition of emotions he nearly knows naught with what to do. The only thing of which he is certain at this very minute is that his fingers need to be inside of her. He runs a hand down her thigh and back up between her legs, and he gasps at how wet and warm she is. His fingers slide easily inside her sweetness, then back out to find her clit. Her hips rise up to meet his fingers as they make languid circles. Every move she makes exacerbates his own arousal as he responds to her pleasure. 

He spreads her legs and moves down between them. It is an awkward position on the small berth, and he is almost certain that if he tastes her he will come right then and there. But if he does not taste her, he is certain he will die with longing. He risks it. He lowers his lips and kisses her, sighing upon her beautiful, little mound. With adoring tongue, he draws lazy figure eights on her, then puts his entire mouth over her and sucks. She is delicious. He can not love her enough. 

“Oh, Elizabeth,” he hums against her, resting his head against her thigh when it all becomes too much. 

“Raymond,” she whimpers. “You’ve gotten me so close.” She sits up to meet him as he crawls back over her. They smile at each other like they have a delightful secret. 

He puts both his arms around her. Her legs hitch around his waist. He comes into her with a cry of some emotion he has never felt. The pleasure is so intense it is almost painful. He holds her and they move together, slowly, savoring every moment. She wraps her arms around his neck and slides her palm down so their scars meet again. 

He touches her face. 

There are no words.

Only this. 

He can feel her tighten around him, as she prepares to climax. Their eyes lock, and he grabs the hand which is not pressed flat against his scar so he can hold it by her head, their fingers laced together, and watch her as she comes around him. It sends him over the edge, and he joins her, lowering his face to press his mouth against her neck.


	14. Chapter 14

They lie, entangled in one another in Lizzie’s berth. It is definitely too small for both of them, but they lie there in silence, playing with each other’s fingers as they curl together. 

Both are exhausted. Neither can sleep. 

It is strange new territory into which they have wandered. They are weary travellers, merely stopping along the way, admiring the beauty of the landscape, but knowing they cannot stay long enough to learn the language, customs, or neighborhoods. So they fumble in the dark, trying to take comfort in little familiarities. The curve of her neck where it meets her shoulder. The depth of his voice as she hears it through his chest. The strength in his fingers, and the hair on his wrist. The rise and fall of her ribs as she breathes under his hand, and the beat of her heart under his ear. These are the small tokens they will take away when they move onto the next leg of their journey. 

Red offers to go out to the galley and heat up their dinner. 

“No,” Lizzie says. “Stay here with me.” 

He kisses her neck, and whispers, “I can deny you nothing.”

“Good to know,” she replies, and he can feel her smile behind the words, even in the dark. She contemplates all of the things she could extort from him at this very moment, but decides against it. She didn’t sleep with Red to get answers. She slept with Red. . . 

. . . because I care about you. Deal with that. 

The words come hissing back at her along with the memory of the look on Red’s face when she saved him. The shock and anger he had felt when she risked her life for him. 

As though he is reading her mind, he says, “So, this is what absolution feels like.” He says it in a sleepy way while he strokes her arm. “For she had eyes and chose me.” He quotes, wondering again why Shakespeare keeps popping into his head. 

“What do you mean?” Lizzie asks. 

“Mmmmmm,” he growls. “You may have guessed that I am not a religious man, Lizzie. Never have been. But I had been thinking, oh, maybe I was dreaming, that there was a way you could save me or grant me some kind of exculpation. And you may have done just that, for a time. A stay of execution, in a sense, if not a pardon entirely. With you, I have felt a part of myself that, as I told you, I have not felt in decades. Unfortunately, it will have to go back into a vault the moment we step off this boat. Unless, you will reconsider?” 

“Red,” she begins. She turns to face him, tucks a leg between his knees, and holds his face in her hands. “I can’t. We can’t.” 

“I’m a powerful man, Lizzie. I can do this. I can keep you safe. I can love you. Please don’t struggle against it. I will give you anything, if you accept my heart. You’ve always had it anyway. We can make this work. I will find a way. Let me love you, Lizzie.” 

There. The words are out, hanging in the balmy air between them. He can feel her body tense in his arms. 

“For how long?” She whispers. 

“Almost forever, it seems,” he says in that smoky voice. “When I first met you again, I didn’t even know I could recognize the damn feeling anymore. Lust, sure. But this other thing,” he lets the thought evaporate as he cups one of her breasts in his hand. “Well, let’s just say, you surprised me. It doesn’t happen often.” 

There is really nothing Lizzie can say to this declaration. It twists in her gut and makes the back of her neck prickle with the anxiety she hasn’t felt for days. She kisses him and the anxiety goes away, but quickly returns. She sits up and turns away, slides her legs over the edge of the bed. She sits there, unable to face him. He reaches up and strokes along her spine, his middle finger bumping gently over each vertebra.

She draws in her breath. 

“What is it?” Red asks. 

“I’m so sorry, Red,” she says, turning her head around to look at him. The cabin is dark, but she can see the flash of his eyes from the ambient night light of moon and stars. “The last man I loved, or thought I loved, was a fake. He was a criminal. He was evil and awful, and I lived with that and didn’t even know. I don’t trust my judgement now. I barely know myself well enough to decide how many sugars I want in my coffee right now. I can’t--”

“Get involved with another criminal,” Red says, finishing the sentence that she can’t. 

“If I made another mistake like that,” she says, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I couldn’t live with myself. I don’t even know what is left of me now. We’ve been through this already. Please let’s not go through it again. I just can’t. It would choke me, devour me until there was nothing left. I don’t know how to let you love me, Red.” She can barely finish the sentence, and sobs, “I’m so sorry.” 

“Shhh,” he whispers. He pulls her back down to lie in his arms. “Hush, Lizzie. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He wipes at her face with his hands, kisses her and repeats, “You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

“Please understand and just let this be,” she begs him. Her kiss is raw as she cries against his mouth. “When we get off this boat tomorrow, things have to go back to how they were. Please understand, Red. Please.” 

“I understand,” he says. “I understand.” For a moment they are quiet again, holding one another, feeling the subtle rocking of the boat. 

“Thank you,” she finally whispers. 

“Nothing to it,” he says, noting that his absolution did not last very long at all. Because although he would do just about anything for the woman in his arms, and he will be understanding and let this be, he is starting to fill with an anger at the world in which will not let him have this love, and a lust for blood which would certainly take away the wretched grief of being saved and held only to be lost and forsaken again. 

He clears his throat and shakes his head a little, trying to return to the sweetness in his arms. The sweetness he can treasure for another day. He kisses her again. 

“It’s a shame,” he says. “I have to admit I am sorry we will not be able to continue our little tryst. I was looking forward to getting to the love making that involves hair pulling, light spanking, and eating flan off of this gorgeous curve right above your ass. Anyway, your loss.” 

She punches him lightly, grateful for the moment of comic relief. “You’re a beast,” she says, laughing through her tears, and she is too tired and devastated to understand the significance of her words in the dark. 

But they do not get past Red.


	15. Chapter 15

Lizzie wakes and he is not there. 

She only slept a few hours, and she wakes with eyes puffy from crying the night before. She smiles and rubs her face as she remembers Red’s arms around her, his comforting whispers, his voice deep as a jaguar as he spoke to her of his feelings, his dreams. 

He loves me! Lizzie thinks with a sigh which is quickly followed by a gush of anxiety that makes her think she might vomit. 

She goes back over the night, piece by piece, putting it back together in her mind until it forms a steady narrative. She blushes as she remembers the thrill of feeling him against her in the shower, their bodies bared before one another for the very first time. 

And she recalls with a sharp breath, the sensation of their scars pressed together, first in the shower and then again as they came to the denouement of their passion. It was almost like finding someone with the same set of fingerprints, not only rare but completely improbable. 

And yet, it had been. 

She rolls over and nuzzles into the pillow on which Red must have slept, because she can smell him in it. It arouses and awakens her. Speaking of which, where the heck is he? She wonders with a frown. 

She pulls herself out of bed, squints in the bright, tropical sun streaming through the slender windows of the boat. She grabs Red’s shirt off the floor and puts it on, hastily buttoning a couple buttons. 

She can hear the husk of Red’s voice as he chatters away on what she assumes is the satellite phone. She drags herself out to the cabin just as he is finishes the call. 

“Good morning,” he says. He is dressed in a three piece, beige linen suite. There is a hat on the dining table. He looks crisp and formal. 

“Hey,” she mumbles. “Who was that?” 

“That was our dear friend, Dembe,” Red says. His face is hard to read. Or maybe his face is just hard. “Pack your things, Lizzie. I have a surprise for you.” 

“What?” She takes a step towards him, and although he does not step away, he also does not open his arms to welcome her to the morning. 

“I bought you a helicopter,” Red says. 

“I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t want to depend on favors from a Mexican drug lord, who was willing to transport us across the country, because he owes me a thing or two. But that’s okay, I can settle up with Hector another time. I wanted to find a way to keep your federal dignity, such as it is, intact. So, I bought you a helicopter.” He shrugs and smiles, but the smile is on his lips only and does not connect up to his eyes. 

“I don’t know how to fly a helicopter, Red.” 

He chuckles at this, and it seems oddly fake after everything they had laid before each other over the past couple days. “Well, yes, Lizzie. Obviously you don’t know how to fly a helicopter, and clearly we don’t have time to send you to flight school. I sent Dembe to take some classes a while back on the subject. Apparently it is quite simple. Just a matter of thrust and torque, airfoils and gravity or something of the sort. He took to it like a fish to water. And I think we have both had enough of water to last us a lifetime after this endless sail. So, pack your things. We leave in an hour.” 

“An hour?”

“Mmmm,” Red mumbles. He is making some notes on a file and looks up as though he is surprised to still see Lizzie standing there. “Go get packed, Lizzie. I have a few more calls to make.” 

Lizzie turns back towards the forward cabin, if for no other reason than to hide the look of shock on her face. 

She didn’t drink that much gin the night before. 

And yet, she feels she woke up on another planet.

Maybe she just hasn’t had her coffee yet, but she feels totally disoriented. 

She imagined waking in his arms. Maybe they would make love again, before another long day of sailing. And then. Then they would get to Acapulco and disembark. It would at least have given her time to think. Time to grieve. Maybe even time to reconsider. But it seems Red has made all the decisions for them. 

She plucks her bag out of the closet and puts it on the bed. The bed which is still rumpled and warm with the memory of their bodies. 

She stuffs it full of as much clothing as it can hold, goes to the head and takes the pots of cream, the pouch of lipstick, all the while wondering what has happened.

\-------

Red goes up on deck with the satellite phone. 

He doesn’t really have any more calls to make. 

He needs distance between himself and Lizzie, needs to get off this boat, needs to go play a few hands of cards or just go someplace where he can admire other women, drink, smoke cigars, and remember there was a world and a life before the confused-looking woman who is currently packing her things. 

He had watched her sleep. He pressed the tip of his thumb, ever so gently, into the little hollow under her eyes, and discovered that as he had suspected, it fit. Just so. Like it was meant for him. 

He traced the outlines of her face, rested his fingers over her heart, and had felt he was filled with lead-- heavy and sinking. He imagined he would fall right through the berth, through the bottom of Always Gold, and sink into the water. He would come to rest on the ocean floor and there he would stay for the rest of time because surely no one would be able to exhume the oppressive weight of him. 

He can not take another day of it. Not another minute. Can not take any more sailing and chatting and loving Lizzie when it is all about to end. 

For a little while he gifted himself with the delusion she would reconsider. Certainly when she felt his scar with her own, when she looked up at him with those eyes filled with a universe of emotion, certainly she would have to accept his heart. 

But she couldn’t. 

And in all reality, it was his fault. He had brought Jacob (that sonofabitch!) into her life. Royally screwed the pooch on that one, he thinks bitterly. And now Lizzie cannot trust herself, or let herself be loved because of his terrible error in judgement. A bullet in that scoundrel's brain would really be too generous. 

So, after he was sure she was sleeping soundly, he got out of bed. He crept out to the galley and availed himself of a hearty tumbler of scotch. He sat up on deck, drinking and fantasizing about all the ways he would destroy Jacob, or whatever the fuck the prick wanted to call himself. But then he realized he might merely inflict more pain on his love by doing so, and he had to abandon his plan. 

It only served to make him furious with himself. 

He couldn’t bring himself to climb back into bed with her. 

He devised a plan to get them off the water. It had to happen immediately. A helicopter was a small price to pay for his sanity, because he would surely decompensate into dust if left any longer on this confounded craft. 

He plans to get Lizzie settled in the Yucatan cottage. He will make sure she is comfortable and well appointed, that she wants for nothing. 

And then he will leave. Go collect some debts. Settle some old scores. Shed some blood and try to forget that, for the remainder of his days, he will never truly be dredged out of the sea. Because he realizes the weight he now feels is the weight of his heart, which has been shoved back into his chest, swollen and packed with lead. 

His train of thought is interrupted as Lizzie joins him on deck. She has dragged her overflowing bag up with her. A corner of the Guayabera dress peeks through the opening, along with her pajamas and toiletries. 

“The water taxi will come to collect us, and then it is just a short ride to the airfield.” He explains this as he stares off at the horizon. He bites his lip and stuffs his hands in his pockets. 

“Do you need any help packing?” She offers with a kindness in her voice that fills him with dread. He laughs. 

“Goodness no,” he says. “I’ll have someone come to collect whatever is essential, which is not very much. And then someone else will come and wipe down the place.” He thinks briefly of their bodily fluids, in the shower, on the sheets. Stray hairs that may have gotten caught in the sails when she so neatly bundled them up. Fingerprints on dishes and mugs. The imprint of her lips on a glass. All of it could be wiped clean, unlike the fingerprints they left all over each other. 

“What will happen to the boat?” 

“Oh, I suppose I’ll have someone take her out to sea and do away with her.” 

“Seems a shame,” Lizzie sighs. “Red. Are we ok?” 

“Peachy,” he says, involuntarily taking a step away from her as he says it. He silently begs her to stop talking. What was it she said? Just let it be? 

“It’s just. You seem very business-like this morning.” 

“Well. This is business and nothing more, isn’t it?” 

“Yes. But. After last night,” her sentiment is lost on the breeze. 

“It’s called ‘compartmentalization,’ my dear,” he says. His tone is brusque. “Aren’t you a board-certified something or other? You should be familiar with it.”

“Yes,” she says, and her voice is cool. “I’m familiar with the term.” 

And after that, there is nothing more to say. They wait in a silence that feels ashen, both of them facing away from each other, blinking back tears as they wait for the water taxi.


	16. Chapter 16

They get to the house after dark. 

A bumpy road leads them well into the jungle for several miles at least. Then, just as it seems they are about to drive off the face of the planet into the darkness, they come down a hill and the house rises up before them. 

If you could really call it a “house.” 

It is really more of an estate. A large main building of yellow stucco dominates the courtyard. It is glowing with light in the otherwise dense landscape. It boasts thick columns, and is trimmed with ornate molding. Several smaller buildings and what looks to be a garage flank the courtyard. A huge fountain gushes water into a pool in the middle of the area. 

Dembe pulls the jeep up the circular driveway and comes to a stop. 

“Ah,” says Red. “We’re here.” 

They get out of the vehicle. Liz makes to get her bag from the back, but Red stops her. “Dembe and the help will bring up your belongings. Come in and get acquainted with the staff. This will be your home away from home for a while.” 

If she could, Liz would explain to Red and Dembe (and really to anyone else that would listen), how disorienting it has been to be in constant motion over the past several weeks. She’s starting to lose track of days, along with her sense of herself. She’s a flexible person, and yet not knowing from day to day where she is or where she is going has taken a toll on her. She misses her touchstones. She misses her dog. She misses her favorite mug with a chip in it and her stained bathrobe. 

Nothing is familiar or comforting in this new life. Except for Red. And now even that connection is estranged. 

He leads her up onto a porch which is full of flowers in large, decorative urns. A woman in a maid’s uniform opens the door. “Buenas noches, Senor Reddington,” she says. She smiles. She looks to be slightly older than middle-aged, and she embraces him in a maternal manner. He removes his hat and smiles down on her. 

“Senora Carmen,” he says and kisses her on both cheeks. “Lizzie, this is Carmen. She does all of the cooking and oversees the main house. If you need anything. Anything at all, she will be at your beck and call. Isn’t that right, Carmen?” 

“Oh, yes. This is very right. My dear,” she says in a thick Spanish accent and takes both of Lizzie’s hands in her own. “You must be so tired. We will get you something to eat and get you settled in all nice for the night.” 

“Thank you,” Lizzie says. She steals a look at Red who is looking around the foyer. It is a large, arched space with a shiny tile floor and salmon walls. There are huge paintings throughout of tropical scenes. If she wasn’t on the run, it would be a lovely and luxurious place to vacation. 

To the left there is a darker room that looks to be a library of sorts. And to the right, there are two arched doorways that lead to living and dining spaces. In the middle of the foyer is a huge stairway that curves up to a second and third floor. Lizzie takes it all in. She wishes Red would hold her hand, then catches herself wishing this and admonishes herself for being such a weakling. You chose this, she reminds herself. 

Dembe comes in behind them, with a bag in each hand. He trots up the stairs, goes into a room on the second floor and deposits Liz’s bag. Then he comes out and goes up to the third floor and leaves the rest of the baggage, presumably Red’s, in a room up there. While he has been doing this, Red has wandered throughout the rooms. 

“Everything looks just right, Carmen. Thank you.”

“De nada,” she says and beams at his approval. 

“You will be on the second floor, Lizzie. And I will be on the third for a day or so, at least until I am called elsewhere. I trust you will be quite comfortable here.” He says this as he walks towards the darker library room. Lizzie follows him. 

“Wait,” she hisses. “You are leaving me here? Alone?” 

“Well, Lizzie, of course not. You won’t be alone. Carmen will be here and there is a very accomodating staff, of course.” 

“But you’re leaving?” She tries not to bite her lip when she hears the desperation in her voice. 

“You are tired, no doubt. You’ll get some rest. In the morning you can see the rest of the place. It’s really quite lovely.” 

Lizzie’s brain is whirring in a feeble attempt to construct a reply to this, when they are distracted by another person walking into the room. A woman, about Lizzie’s age, strides in. She wears a short, red dress with a zipper all the way down the front. She has long, muscular legs. She looks to be almost a foot taller than Lizzie, and her dark hair comes down to her waist. 

“Raymond! Mi corazon!” 

“Well, well, well. Hello there Sonya!” Red embraces the Amazonian and kisses her on her cheeks, much as he had Senora Carmen. But there is something about the way this Sonya’s hands stroke and linger on his lapels that grinds the gears in Lizzie’s head to a screeching halt. Lizzie puts a hand up to her own hair, which is pulled back in a disheveled ponytail. She had not showered that morning before the water taxi came to pick them up, and she feels greasy and unkempt after a day travelling in helicopter and jeep across Mexico. She immediately hates the way Sonya’s lustrous hair bounces and shimmers as she turns to regard Liz. 

“Lizzie, meet my dear friend, Sonya,” Red croons. And something about the way he says this giant woman’s name makes Lizzie want to roundhouse her in the stomach with all her strength. 

But she sticks out her hand. “Hi.” 

The woman takes Lizzie’s hand in her’s. Her nails are long and red, the same infernal shade as her dress, Liz notes with an internal huff. 

“Ai, but mi amores, you must be so tired. And you must be wanting some baths,” she says and looks at Liz as she says the bath part. “And some frutas maybe?” She winks at Red when she adds this last bit. 

“Oh, Sonya,” Red sighs with a smile as he claps his hands together and tosses his head back, as though in a very slight ecstasy. “Yes. It’s as though you could read my mind. If you could take my friend here to her room and draw her a nice bath that would be just divine.” 

The last thing Liz wants is to be bathed by this woman, who’s eyelashes (she is just noticing) are freakishly long and thick. Must be fake, Lizzie thinks. And that’s probably not all that is fake. 

“It would be my pleasure, Raymond,” she coos. Then she turns to Liz and says, “Right this way,” in a solicitous manner that makes Liz want to retch. 

Liz follows Sonya up the stairs in the wake of a musky perfume. Liz has the urge to cough, but she contains it with a swallow. She looks back down the stairs, but Red has already disappeared from the foyer. 

Sonya leads her into a large room. The walls are a creamy color that reminds her of butter. Everything is pristine-- the bed is made, and the dressers look clean and are dotted with little bottles and packets-- like a hotel, but the furniture is a collection of charming antiques that lend a homey air to the room. 

Liz’s overstuffed go-bag is on a little chest at the end of the bed. It looks sloppy and out of place, but is a small comfort of familiarity. 

While Liz looks around the room, Sonya flicks on the light in an adjoining bathroom. Liz hears water running into a tub. She feels grimy, is covered in dust and sweat from the day’s travel, and a bath is starting to sound like a very good idea. But just as she is about to move towards the bath, she catches a trio of framed photos on a little dressing table. She crosses the room to inspect them further, and finds that they are photos of her dog, the photo of her and her mother, and a photo of Sam. 

Her stomach flips as she picks up the picture of her father. “Daddy,” she whispers. She clutches the photo to her chest as tears begin to prickle in her eyes. But she’s not crying for her father. She’s moved by this small, but very significant gesture made, no doubt, by the man in the suit and hat who acted like a complete stranger all day. 

They had stepped off the boat and onto the water taxi, uttering barely a word to one another. Red seemed to be ignoring her, and Lizzie just had no clue what to say. As the day went on, Lizzie felt almost suffocated with the urge to cry or scream. Part of her felt desperate to get his attention, and another part of her just wanted to be alone someplace where she could figure things out. 

But what was there to figure out? This is what she had decided. She was just going to have to stay in motion and keep moving forward. Hopefully her constant motion in a forward direction would lead her to answers, freedom, safety, and away from this wretched infatuation she had developed for Raymond Reddington. 

Raymond Reddington was back to being the bane of her existence, although for an entirely different reason that he was before. 

Yet, the bane of her existence had been thoughtful enough to put three pictures in this new room. Three pictures which gave her comfort and reminded her who she was. 

Sonya wanders out of the bathroom and over to Liz. “The water is almost ready,” she says. “Would you like me to wash your hair?” 

“No, Sonya,” Liz says, placing the framed photo of Sam back on the table. “I think I can manage. Thank you.” 

“De nada,” Sonya says with a demure smile. Liz notices that the woman’s lips match her dress and her nails. She tries not to roll her eyes. “If you leave your clothes in that basket, they will be collected and washed for you.”

“Thank you,” Liz says again, and manages a polite smile. She really wishes Sonya would get the fuck out of her room and leave her the fuck alone. Something about her makes Liz feel if she never sees her again it will be too soon. Maybe it was the way she had looked at Red. 

Sonya finally leaves, and Liz goes into the bathroom. Sonya had lit a few candles and turned down the lights for her. The window is open, and a breeze blows in off what Liz assumes is the sea, for she can hear the waves lapping against the shore. The tub is filled with sudsy water, and as she inhales, she realizes the bubble bath is the same organic lavender and vanilla blend she favors. She strips off her jeans and shirt and tosses them in the basket. She wanders around the spacious bathroom, and finds all the cupboards and drawers fully stocked with any and every manner of toiletry of which she could dream. Red had managed to stay several steps ahead and see to everything. She sighs at the thought of him ordering all this stuff for her as she removes her underwear and slides into the tub. 

She puts her head back and slides under the water, saturating her entire body. She comes back up and leans against the tub, closes her eyes and tries to relax. It feels strange to be alone for what is really the first time in over two weeks. This is the farthest she has been from Red in all that time. Even during the week they surfed around hotels, he was still only a door away and they had spent the majority of their time together. Now, she has no clue where he is in this cavernous house. 

And he said he was leaving. 

She slides her hands over her body, massaging in suds and scrubbing out dirt. She realizes this is the first she’s bathed since they made love. Was that really only 24 hours ago? She wonders at how much things have changed. But of course they could not have stayed on that boat forever. And this is how it has to be, isn’t it? 

With a shiver she recalls his tongue swirling over her most sensitive parts. She plays back the memory of his hands on her, and the sound he had made when he entered her for the first time. She’d never had it like that before. With anyone. It hardly seems fair she won’t have it like that again. 

She comes back to the thought of him leaving. Leaving her. Where the hell is he going anyway? The thought is more than her exhausted brain can handle. 

Suddenly restless, she stands and gets out of the tub. She dries herself and finds a comb which she runs through her wet hair. There is a bathrobe on the back of the door which she puts on. She goes back into her bedroom and paces, opening doors and drawers as she explores her new surroundings. As she suspected, the dresser drawers are piled full with clothing. And there are a few light dresses and blouses hanging in the closet. She even finds a conservative-looking, black bathing suit and several sarongs. 

The thought occurs to her, and instantly enrages her, that Red might have had Sonya order her wardrobe. It is almost more than she can bear to think about, and she slams the closet door shut and flops onto the bed. 

She lies there for a few moments, arguing with herself and with Red in her head, drumming her fingertips on the mattress. She can’t sit still, so she gets up and unpacks her bag. She tosses her dirty clothes into the basket, and puts the pouch of lipsticks tenderly on the bathroom counter, along with the pot of jasmine cream. 

The last thing in her bag, at the very bottom, is Red’s shirt. When she packed this morning, she had wadded it up and stuffed it in there. She knows he won’t miss it. His thousand dollar suits are practically disposable to him, but she still feels sheepish as she brings it to her face. 

His scent is deep in the fibers of the material, as she realizes with a sob, his essence is deep in the fibers of her. 

It is absolutely silent in her room, but for the steady hush of the sea and her own pounding heart. 

She is wired and filled with tension. She wishes Red were here to hold her hand and offer his unyielding shoulder, and she is furious with herself for driving this wedge between them. 

It is unbearable. 

Lizzie tucks Red’s shirt under her pillow and decides there must be a bottle of wine in this villa with her name on it. She peeks out her door, and it is dark and quiet. It seems the house has gone to bed, so she creeps out her door and down the stairs, still in only her robe. She finds the kitchen and as suspected, there is a fridge fully stocked with wine. She helps herself to a bottle and pokes around until she finds a corkscrew and glass. She pours herself a glass and drinks it in one gulp. 

Maybe she could find Red. Talk to him. There are still answers she needs, answers she deserves. If he is leaving her, then she needs the truth in its entirety. 

She pours herself another glass and drinks it down. Her head reminds her she has nothing in her stomach with a dizzy rush. But she’s not hungry. Not for food anyway. She needs Red. Where the fuck is Red? 

The first floor seems completely deserted, so she starts up the stairs, glass and bottle in hand. She pauses on the landing of the second floor, her floor. She glances at the door to her room, and takes a deep breath as she decides to keep walking up to the third floor. She is somewhat unsteady on her feet and her stomach absorbs all the wine and sends it straight to her head. She is on the third step up towards the third floor, towards Red, when she sees Sonya come out of his room, zipping up her crimson dress, and straightening her hair.


	17. Chapter 17

Red is just sitting down on his balcony with a scotch and cigar when Lizzie bursts into the room. She’s wearing a robe, which seems to be falling open, and there is a hostile flush on her cheeks. She’s holding a half-empty bottle of wine in one hand and a completely empty glass in the other hand. 

Truth be told, she looks fetching. Radiant, even. 

She races out to the balcony and hovers over him. 

“Raymond Reddington, of all the despicable, evil, and twisted things you could do to me!” She screams at him. He lowers the hand that was about to light his cigar, but otherwise stays completely still. He looks up at her. 

“Lizzie,” he says. “How wonderful and unexpected of you to stop by.” 

“How could you?” She pants. She waves her arms a bit and he can see that the bottle is actually mostly empty. 

“How could I what, exactly, Lizzie?” 

“I saw her! I saw that Amazon harlot walking out of your room!” 

“Ahh. So you did.” 

Lizzie paces back and forth over the balcony. She goes to the edge and stands there, looking out over the veranda towards the sea. For a moment it is quiet but for the shushing of the water below. She utters an angry huff, sloshes the rest of the bottle of wine into her glass and polishes it off. 

“I’m assuming you have not eaten anything,” Red says. “That’s going to be quite a little wine headache in the morning. Why don’t we get you some water?” Lizzie turns to look at him. She scowls at him with that sour little face that always makes him think of grapefruit. He smiles, in spite of himself. It is an immediately regretted action. 

“Are you laughing at me?” She howls. She smashes her wine glass at his feet and is about to hurl the wine bottle at his head, but he quickly stands and catches her wrist in his hand. 

“Lizzie. I will thank you to keep your voice down. It will not do to wake the whole house.” He steers her inside towards his room, deposits the wine bottle at a safe distance, picks up a pitcher of water and pours her a glass. “This is double filtered water. No need to worry about any of those nasty, little jungle amoebas. Now drink and settle down,” he purrs. She pushes away his hand and some of the water spills out onto the carpet. She struts to the little bar in his room, where there is a crystal decanter of scotch, along with some glasses on a tray. She pours herself a sloppy few fingers and tosses it back in one aggressive slug. She starts to cough and sputter, and it is all he can do not to laugh at how acutely adorable this is. She repeats the process. “How did that little rhyme go? Wine before liquor, never sicker?” He says, not sure exactly how to proceed with her in this volatile state. 

“I will not stay here,” Lizzie snaps. “I will not stay in this house with that, that whore! How could you, Red?”

“Why don’t we get some rest and talk about this in the morning?” He sighs. He must enlist Carmen in pursuing Lizzie’s nutrition. He can see the bones of her chest against her skin as she huffs and puffs at him, like an angry, little bird. She’d eaten almost nothing during their travels today, and she did not come down for any food after her bath. It will not do to have her starving herself, especially if it renders her to this state after a few glasses of wine. 

“You are always telling me to get rest! Fuck you, Reddington! Fuck you and your fucking rest! I do not need any rest!”

“Lizzie,” he begins soberly. “It’s been a long day. Maybe I need some rest.” 

“Oh, I’m sure you do need some rest after doing your little tango with Senorita Sonya!” 

“You’re being quite presumptuous. And as I’ve told you before, I find jealousy to be a very base emotion.” He rubs his eyes. It is hard to see her in this state. It is hard to see her so raw and distressed and to feel powerless to help her. All he wants is to draw her to him, to pepper her face with little kisses, to scoop her out of that robe and give her with all the reassurance and affection his body could provide. There is a stirring in his lower region, as though his cock is nodding in approval of this plan to comfort her. 

“Fine. I’ll pack my things and leave on my own.” 

“No. You absolutely will not do that. Especially in this condition.” 

“You don’t get to tell me what to do. Believe it or not, you don’t get to make all the decisions for me. I am quite capable of deciding things for myself.” 

“Of course you are, Lizzie. But for you to go out into the jungle on your own in the middle of the night would be not only dangerous, but foolish. Do you even know any Spanish? Nevermind,” he says, and waves a hand between them to dismiss the question. “I will not allow it, as it would most surely end in you coming to harm.” 

“Clearly, you do not give a flying fuck about me, Reddington.” She says. Her robe has slipped down to expose an ivory shoulder, and the crest of a breast. Red’s eyes roll involuntarily as he recalls his tongue sliding over her perky, pink nipples. Lizzie catches this. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me, you bastard!” She hisses, completely misinterpreting the eye roll. She pounds her thighs with her fists and paces the floor. Red is ashamed to admit that for a brief moment he thinks of the chloroform in his go bag. Of course he would never, but he needs to do something to contain this situation. He actually fears she would try to escape and if she wasn’t attacked and eaten by a jaguar, she could fall fate to a hundred other jungle disasters. He shakes his head. 

“Let’s sit down and talk this through,” he tries. 

As though she didn’t hear him, she looks up at him and her blazing, blue eyes fill with tears. “I should have known. What was that, Red? Last night? What? I wasn’t a good enough fuck for you so you had to go and get off with the first hussy who threw herself at you? What? Is Sonya’s ‘fruta’ better than mine? You are a fucking demon.” 

“Oh, so we are back to that, are we? Me being the monster, the Devil, the demon?” He says. He shakes his head sadly. “Elizabeth. I simply will not have this conversation with you now, while you are in this state. It is not productive for either of us. Drink some water. Go to bed. We will talk in the morning.” He gestures towards the door. 

She flies at him, fists flailing, pounding his chest, scratching at his face. He grabs her wrists with very little effort. Although she is decently trained in fight tactics, she is uncoordinated from drink, lack of food, and exhaustion. Almost no effort is needed to restrain her, much as he hates to do it, by turning her back into his chest and pulling her hands down and across her body. 

And that’s all it takes. 

She goes limp in his arms, sobbing. He moves her to a chair and sits her down. He pulls up a chair next to her and sits quite close. His brow furrows. She puts her face in her hands and weeps. He puts a hand on the small of her back, not knowing if it will help or send her into another rage. But she doesn’t fly into a rage, so he takes another risk and extracts a handkerchief from his pocket. He wipes at her eyes, and then she takes it to swipe her nose. 

“How could you,” she whispers, looking up at him. “How could you sleep with her? After last night?” 

“I didn’t,” he whispers back, nuzzling her neck, under her ear as he says it. He brushes her hair away from her face and kisses her cheek. He can’t help himself. “Nothing happened, Lizzie.” 

“Red. Don’t insult me by lying to me. She was totally coming on to you. And you were flirting with her. And then I saw her. I saw her coming down the stairs and zipping up her dress.” 

“Oh dear,” he sighs. “I’m not lying, Sweetheart. She tried. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not after. . . Lizzie, look at me. I sent her away. I sent her away from the house. She will be gone by morning.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes. Really. Now could we please get some rest?” She may be intoxicated from the wine and scotch, but it is the fragrance of her damp hair and warm skin that is making him dizzy. He needs her to go before he becomes weak. 

“Ok.”

“And you promise me you won’t run off into the jungle?” 

“Yeah.” Lizzie nods. She stands and begins to walk to the door. “You could have told me that from the beginning,” she hiccoughs. The sheepish thing she is doing with her eyes as she looks up at him from under her lashes is doing something oddly erotic to Red’s crotch. He sighs, his mouth presses tightly together as he tries to allow the moment to pass like a smoky cloud in the inky night sky. He gives her a curt, little nod. 

“My apologies,” he rasps. He sits back in the chair and crosses his legs. 

She makes it to the door and her hand reaches out for the ornate, crystal knob. He watches as her fingers close around it, tries to stifle a moan as he imagines her fingers around him. Her fingers rest on the knob, but she does not turn it. Her hand drops down against her hip, and she looks back at him. 

“Please don’t leave me, Red,” she whispers through quivering lips. A fresh stream of tears flows down her cheeks. “Please. You’re all I have.” 

She is flushed and drunk and a little desperate. As she stands there, unsteadily trying to tie her robe around her and collect a shred of her dignity, she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. In his life. His hand comes to his heart because it physically hurts. 

He’s been everywhere. He’s seen the pyramids. He’s swum with wild dolphins off the coast of Tahiti. He’s hiked the foothills of the Himalaya, and been on safari in Africa. But nothing has ever prepared him to feel so helplessly awed and humbled by the beauty of the tipsy Lizzie who stands before him, pleading. He suddenly understands the urgency with which Shah Jahan spent his entire life building the Taj Mahal for his beloved Mumtaz. 

She looks so fragile. Though she’s spent days in the sun with him on the boat, and her skin is burnished, she somehow appears pale as china and equally as breakable. And yet, he knows there is strength beneath the surface. There is sinew and flexibility she does not yet even know exists. 

She could live without him. She could. And she could somehow thrive and flourish and remain as lovely as she is right at this moment. 

Of this he is certain. 

But could he live without her? 

Of this he has very little faith. 

He considers her, as she stands there. His head is tugged towards his ear. His hand clutches his heart. He cannot breathe. For a moment, he thinks he might black out all together. She sees this. 

“Red?” She asks, and her eyebrow raises in concern.

There is no other choice. 

He rushes to her, gathers her in his arms and utters, “You are breathtaking,” in an almost angry growl. Angry because how dare this mystical creature steal the very breath away from him? He means to hug her and nothing more. He means to send her on her way and go to bed alone with his hand. But as he holds her, he feels her collect her breath as she senses his erection pounding between them. Her arms tighten around him and she tips her face up. 

There is no other choice. 

He kisses her madly, thrusting and sweeping his tongue into her open mouth. Her breath is ripe with alcohol, but her lips taste like honey as he bends her back over his arm to kiss her. 

“Don’t ever stop kissing me,” she whispers, an echo his own words from several nights ago.

His hands slide over her arms, down to untie her robe, and he reaches in to encircle her waist. He pulls her hips towards him. The sensation of his own hands against her hot flesh causes a fierce rumble in the back of his throat, but he does not stop kissing her. He kisses her as he leads her toward the bed. He kisses her as she fumbles with the buttons of his shirt and the buckle of his belt. He kisses her as they wriggle out of clothing, fall onto the bed, and clutch at one another’s necks. He kisses her as she frees his cock from his pants and takes it in her supple hand. He kisses her endlessly, as he did the night of their first kiss on the boat. He kisses her because she told him never to stop, and he can deny her nothing. 

He kisses her because it allows him to breathe.

And he needs to breathe. He needs her. 

He does not stop kissing her, even as she wraps her legs around him, and guides him into her. She is so wet and tight and soft around him. He is almost instantly ready to come, but he wants the moment to last, so he stops moving and just floats there inside of her, his lips slowing to rest quietly on her mouth. Her eyes flutter open under his. With a silky moan, she squeezes his cock with those tenacious, lovely muscles. And in that stillness, her mouth opens in a tiny convulsion of breath, but she is otherwise silent, as he feels her climax pulsate around him. He moves in slow circles inside of her, helping her feel every wave, and then another. Her breath is ragged against his shoulder, and she clutches his ass. She urges him along with her hips, synced counter-clockwise to the gentle rotations of his. She matches this rhythm, compressing him internally. He’s never felt anything like it in his life, as she squeezes a gushing orgasm out of him. 

He cries out as he collapses against her in pleasure. 

But he never stops kissing her. 

\-------

When she finally breaks their kiss, she accepts a glass of water and an aspirin. Her head will likely be pounding in the morning, but at this moment, she seems oddly sober. After she drinks the water, they lie together. 

“Can I stay here? With you in your bed tonight?” She asks. 

“Yes.” 

“And you won’t leave me, and I can wake up in your arms?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Promise?” 

He says nothing, but kisses her. It is his vow. It satisfies. He tucks her into his shoulder, her head on his chest. 

“I slept with Tom.” She says, breaking the silence. 

“I knew that. You were married. And I saw the videos.” He grumbles. 

“No,” she says. “The day I shot Connolly. I slept with Tom before it happened. I was going to leave with him on his boat.” 

“You really want to talk about this now?” Red murmurs. 

“Yes,” Lizzie says. She props herself up on an elbow and places her other hand on his chest. “I was going to go away with him on his boat. But then I shot Connolly. And I chose you. It was like a moment of clarity, like a thousand things happened in my brain at once. And I chose you.” She makes a fist with her hand and raps it lightly on his chest. She lowers her face and kisses him over his heart, inhaling his scent. 

“What is that?” She asks. 

“What is what?” 

“Your smell. What is it you wear?” 

“Oh, it’s a private blend I order from Saudi Arabia,” he says. He’s sleepy. He tucks her back into his arms. “Sandalwood, vanilla, leather, tobacco, lemongrass. A bunch of stuff, really. Do you approve?” 

“Yes. I love it.” 

“Then I’ll never stop wearing it,” he sighs into her hair. “Just for you.” 

“Have you always worn it?” 

“Mmmmh hmmmm.” 

“Oh. I only just noticed it. When we were in the closet in that hotel.” She yawns and nuzzles into his chest. “Red?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I chose you.”

“Yeah, Sweetheart. I know.” He entwines her fingers with his on his chest. 

They drift off to sleep, neither knowing what the sunrise will bring, but knowing they will wake to greet the light in each other’s arms.


	18. Chapter 18

As promised, he stays with her. She wakes in his arms. 

As suspected, she has a splitting headache, and she feels like she is going to vomit. The room spins as she opens her eyes. He has mercifully drawn the curtains so it is not glaringly bright in the room, but there is enough light to see by, and to know it is sunny outside. She groans wondering if she should go puke and get it over with, or if the moment will pass. 

As she groans, she wiggles a bit in his arms. He is behind her, holding her, and the sensation of her bum nudging him is all he needs to become hard. He presses into her silky flesh. 

“Oh no. Red. I can’t,” she whispers. “I think I might be sick.” 

“Mmmmmh.” He sighs. It’s okay. He’ll have his way with her later. “What do you need, Sweetheart?” He asks. His morning voice is froggy, even deeper than it usually is. 

“Ugh. To go back in time and not drink so much,” she moans. He chuckles. She let’s a hand flail behind her in a feeble punch. “Don’t laugh at me,” she says. 

“Ah, yes. We did establish last night that you do not like to think you are being laughed at,” he says. 

“Oh, Red. I’m sorry about that. Was I awful?” 

“Yes,” he says, nodding and nuzzling in her hair. He laughs again. “You were awful. And amazing. And you told me you were mine.” There is a playful tone in his voice she has never heard before. 

“Uh, I don’t think that is exactly what I said,” she laughs, despite her throbbing head. She turns in his arms to face and squint at him. “Can I use your bathroom?” 

“Of course. Mi casa es su casa.” 

Lizzie drags her body out from under the sheets. She rubs her face and runs her tongue over her teeth. She contemplates putting on her robe, then decides she will walk naked and proud into Red’s bathroom. After she uses the toilet, she regards herself in the mirror. Her eyes are puffy with violet circles underneath. Her skin looks sallow and her hair is standing in sixteen different directions. She smoothes her hair and looks around the bathroom. It is done in deep blue and green tones, and there is an ample amount of potted ferns. A huge jacuzzi tub is planted in the middle of the floor and there is a large shower as well. On the counter near the sinks, there is a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste. “Oh thank god,” she whispers. She avails herself of a good toothbrushing, and it is worth the gagging on the intense mint flavor to have a clean mouth. She splashes some cold water on her face. 

When she is satisfied with her grooming, she walks back out to the bedroom. Red sits in the bed, propped up on pillows. “Hi.” She says. 

“Get back here,” he orders. She comes back to the bed and stands before him. He makes a noise in the back of his throat as he takes in her slender waist, her plump breasts, her glorious mound of which he would love more. He looks up at her, awestruck yet again. She has shed light into his cavern. 

“And you were scared a jaguar would eat me?” She says in response to his lascivious growl. 

“So, you remember that?” 

“I do.” 

“Do you remember everything?” There is a touch of anxiety in his voice as he asks her this question. He has lain awake most of the night, frightened she would wake and have forgotten that she chose him, that she pleaded with him to stay, to hold her. 

She takes a step closer to his side of the bed so he can reach out and put a hand on her waist. “I remember everything.” 

There is a knock at the door. Liz jumps and wraps her arms around herself. Red smiles. “It’s ok, Lizzie. It is just our breakfast. And some fresh water and aspirin for you, my love.” 

“Should I go back in the bathroom?” Panic flushes her face. 

“No,” he says. 

“But they’ll see me?”

“You are mine, remember? But you might want to put on a robe.” He climbs out of bed and produces robes for both of them, which they toss over their shoulders. Liz sits on the bed as Red goes to the door. Carmen comes in, wheeling a tray of what is presumably food, coffee, tea, flowers, a carafe of water, and a bottle of medicine. She slides it to the foot of the bed, then goes and opens the curtains. She smiles at them and leaves without so much as a word. 

A waft of eggs and toast assaults Liz’s stomach along with the bright light. “Oh, Red. I don’t think I can eat anything.” 

“Nonsense. If you don’t eat, that aspirin will make your stomach hate you even more than it does right now. Come on, try a little something.” He pours a glass of water for her and plops in a couple tablets of something that fizzes and bubbles. 

“I haven’t seen that stuff since I was a girl,” she says. “My father used to use it after large meals.” 

“Perhaps it is old fashioned, but there is nothing quite like it for the ubiquitous morning after,” he says and hands her the glass. She sips and almost gags on the bitter liquid, but as her stomach embraces it she feels almost immediately better. “Now, sit back and eat some eggs and toast. Maybe a little pineapple? I had Carmen skip the bacon. But just for this morning. We will have you back to your extra crispy bacon first thing tomorrow.” 

“No. Red. No. Eggs? No.” 

“Lizzie, I have it on very good authority from a scientist friend of mine that eggs are ‘Nature’s Sponge’. They will sop up all the nastiness in your sweet little tummy and make you feel ready to take on the day.” 

“And the toast?” 

“Well the toast is just because, well, toast.” He takes a bite and munches with a smile. He sits down on the bed next to her with the tray. He scoops up a forkful of eggs and offers it before her lips. She opens her mouth and accepts it with a dubious eyebrow. The eggs are fluffy and well-salted, and truth be told, delicious. Her stomach accepts them and demands more. Red feeds her forkful after forkful until they are gone. She takes a piece of toast and bites into it. “Was I right, or was I right?” He asks. 

“You were right,” she snorts. “But don’t get used to it.” 

“Lizzie. There will be no more of your grudging and reluctance.” He puts the fork and toast down and takes both her hands in his. “We are past that. We are not doing that any more. Do you understand me?” She nods. “Good,” he says. 

“I have a question,” she begins. 

“Oh. You and the endless questions. Well, what is it?” 

“Did you have that, uh, woman pick out my clothes. And the bathing suit?” 

“You mean Sonya?” 

“Ugh! I never want to hear her name again!” 

“No. I did not have her pick out your things. To be completely honest, Dembe did most of it. At one point, I’d had him do some recon at your apartment to find out your sizes and brands you favor,” he says. She scowls a bit and he throws up his hands. “Well, full disclosure and all, Lizzie. Why? Do you not like the clothes? Would you rather something different?” 

“No. It’s fine. He did a decent job.” 

“Well, if you like, there are a stack of catalogues. Go through them and circle whatever you want. We will make an order for you of your very own selection. I have also learned how you like to make your own decisions.” He raises an eyebrow in jest. 

“Oh, Red. Don’t poke fun,” she replies, but her tone is playful. 

He brings her fingers to his lips, kisses them, and hands her back her toast. He pours himself a cup of coffee. “Can you handle coffee or would you prefer a ginger tea?” 

“Tea. No, coffee, I think?” She watches his hand pick up the coffee pot and pour a cup for her. The sun catches the golden hair on the back of his hands and wrists. Her eyes fill with tears and she sighs heavily. He starts to hand the cup to her, but sees her face twisting in raw emotion, and puts it back on the tray. 

“Lizzie? What is it?” 

“Can you just hold me?” 

“Of course,” he says. He pushes the tray away and gathers her against his chest. She still feels as light and fragile as a bird, but he got a good breakfast into her and for this small triumph, he smiles over her head. They fall back against the pillows in each other’s arms. “What is it? Do you want to talk?’ 

“No,” she whispers. “I don’t want to talk. I just want to feel you.” They curl so her back is in his chest, in the same position in which they woke. They lie like this for some time, drifting in the sunny room on the sound of the sea. 

“Do you know what else is good for a hangover?” He murmurs. 

“What?” 

“Endorphins.”

“I suppose you have a bottle of those lying around somewhere?” 

“No,” he says, nuzzling his face into her neck and biting her lightly. “But I know how to make them. Would you like to try?” He grinds his cock against her ass and she moans. 

“Yes,” she whimpers. 

“Are you sure you feel up to it?” 

“Yes.” 

He stays behind her, opens her robe and slides it off of her while he wiggles out of his. He cups a breast with one hand and reach down to stroke her with the other. His fingers discover she is already slick as he plays with her. His kisses and nibbles on her neck elicit little gasps and moans, as does his suckling on her earlobe as he caresses her breast and rubs against her. “How’s that?” He whispers. 

“Good,” she whispers back over her shoulder. “So good.” 

His fingers play her as he rubs against her warm skin. His cock slides over her ass and the small of her back. He feels her breath quicken as she writhes in his arms. He rolls her forward slightly, not quite onto her stomach, and shoves a knee between her leg. He brings his cock to tickle her opening, sliding in just the tip of his head. “And this? Do you like this?” 

“Yes.” 

“Would you like more?” 

“Please. Yes.” 

He slides easily into her, but pulls back out to his tip, teasing her. She arches her back and thrusts her hips back at him. “More. Please,” she whimpers. He groans helplessly when he hears her begging him, and thrusts in and out, but maintains the slow pace. He is learning her body, learning that she enjoys this languid stimulation. And it pleases him too. He toys with her clit as he moves inside of her. Their pace quickens. 

“Say my name,” he growls, almost unable to breathe. 

“Raymond,” she whispers over her shoulder, twisting her face back to kiss him. “Oh, Raymond.” 

“Elizabeth. You’re mine,” he moans. He clutches her body as he gives her everything he’s got from behind. “You’re mine. You’re mine.” He whispers it over and over until he comes, spilling into her with a happy little cry, so that he almost doesn’t hear when she whispers.

“Yes. Yes. I’m yours,” as she spasms in pleasure around him.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of this fic... It was the first fic I ever wrote and I have a soft spot in my heart for it. Thank you so much for reading and commenting and leaving Kudos. You are all gorgeous. I thought that I would write a fancier ending, or that I could have kept writing this fic forever, but it just seemed right to end it here. So I did. xoxo.

Days pass in Mexico, and they are able to stand still for longer than they had been in weeks. It is in this stillness, and relative safety, Red watches Lizzie process things-- the truth about her biological father and his death, her murder of the Attorney General, and her fugitive status. 

She also seems to be coming to grips with the new intimacy between them. 

At times she seems content. She sits in a chair by the pool with a book, or goes for a swim in the sea. He is never far from her. Of course there is work to be done, calls to be made, but he does what he can in as close proximity to her as possible. Most of the time, she doesn’t seem to mind his presence, and he is mindful not to hover. She makes tender little gestures like reaching for his hand, or smiling at him over dinner on the veranda and he allows himself for an instant to imagine maybe she might be happy. 

Some nights, she sleeps with him, in his room, in his bed, in his arms. More often, she tosses and turns next to him, or gets up and spends hours sitting out on his balcony. And some nights she removes herself to her own room and is not seen again until morning or afternoon of the next day.

He tries not to worry when she is out of his sight. He tries not to gulp in desperation for air when her absence renders him breathless. 

At times, she seems overtaken by sullen silence that scares him. One day, he watches from his office window, as she sits on a towel in the sand and stares at the waves, as though hypnotized, for hours. It’s all he can do not to go to her, to shake her lightly and bring her back, but he knows she needs to deal with this in her own way, so he stays at a safe distance, keeping watch. He trusts her strength, even as he doubts his own. 

There are no more rages, no more drunken scenes, but truthfully, he would almost prefer that to the way she removes herself to corners of her mind.

Also gone are the demands for answers to questions that frighten him for both of their sakes. While the absence of interrogation offers him a few moments of reprieve, it also alarms him. If Lizzie has given up wanting or needing the truth, then he fears she may just give up all together, become lost to both of them. 

On a breezy night, they enjoy dinner on the veranda. Lizzie is eating at least, which pleases and reassures Red. The sun sets as they eat. Carmen brings out a dessert and lights candles on the table. Torches on the veranda burst into flame. 

“Ah ha!” Red cries as Carmen places little ramekins before them. “Thank you, Carmen! You see, Lizzie? I told you there would be flan!” 

“This looks more like a creme brulee,” Lizzie says. She taps the caramelized sugar on top of the dish with the side of her spoon. 

“Perhaps, but it tastes like a flan,” says Red as he scoops up a spoonful and holds it to her lips. She shakes her head with a wry smile, but opens her mouth and accepts the sweet. “Delicious. Isn’t it?” He watches Lizzie swallow the custard, and the white, column of her throat bobs. He takes a bite. She looks out over the water and he feels her slip away from him as her mind takes her elsewhere. He puts his spoon down. He reaches for and squeezes her hand, hopes she does not go too far. To his surprise, she squeezes his hand in return. 

“Does it ever get easier?” She asks, her eyes still out to sea. 

“No,” he says because he wants to be honest with her, even though it is a cold, hard truth. There are night he still lies awake with the face of his friend, dead and ashen on the cliffs, looking up at him until he reaches down and closes his eyes forever. But they always pop open again, as if to let him say, I see. I know what you have done. I know everything. He sees Garrick shoot Luli. He sees Fitch’s head liquify before him. He watches as Lizzie risks her life on dozens of occasions, some of them actually bringing them to harm and close to death. It is almost more than he can bear. Hence the scotch. The movie that plays on the back of his eyelids is an endless reel of pain, death, and destruction. There have been times he’s wished to be blind so as not to see the world in which he has trampled. But he knows, even in darkness the movie would still play. And play. 

He does the same thing as Lizzie. He has his own escapes up there, in the gray hallways under his skull-- his daughter’s recital of Swan Lake, being one of them. Watching Jennifer bouree, jete, and pirouette across the stage in his mind brings him solace, so long as he can keep his eyes shut and the music playing. “It doesn’t get easier, Lizzie. But it gets different. There is a numbness. You rationalize things to make them make sense, even though they never do. Your mind looks for loopholes to rest in, and if you can’t find one, you’ll create it to survive.” 

“You once told me that survival had made you hideous.” 

He considers this with a heavy breath. 

“Lizzie. You are not me. You could never be hideous. You could never be anything other than lovely. Strong. Fresh. You are a creature who lives in the light. You always have been and always will be. You are a fighter, and a survivor, but you are not me.” 

“I wish I felt the way you see me,” she whispers to the water. “But I don’t. I’ve been a killer since I was a child. What is that all I will ever be?” 

“Elizabeth,” he says in a firm, low voice. “Come here.” He tugs on her hand and pulls her up off her chair and into his lap. He holds her against him, strokes her, kisses her. “Look at me. I’d been living in the shadows for decades. And then you. . . You,” he chokes on a sob as the tears spill over onto his cheeks. He whispers, hoarsely, “I’ve gravitated almost helplessly to your light. Your warmth. Even when I did not want to. Even when I feared it. That you could offer me entrance into your glow is beyond what I could have ever dreamed. And it is far beyond what I deserve. Maybe you can not see it, but loving you has made my life less hideous. Can you imagine that? Small consolation, I know, but that you could embrace a monster like me, it only goes to prove the inherent goodness you possess.” 

He crushes her against him as he cries. 

“You could never be like me,” he says at last. He realizes she has never seen him cry, and he watches as she takes it all in. His eye twitches in discomfort under her gaze. At least she won’t be able to criticize him for lack of vulnerability. He’s been more vulnerable with her in the past few weeks than ever in his life. Walls have come crashing down around him. “You will never be like me,” he says at last to break the silence. 

“But I’m yours,” she whispers. She cups his face in her hands, runs her fingers over his head, tugs on his ears and lets her hands come to rest on his shoulders. She leans forward, so her face is nearly touching his, and her tongue darts out to catch one of his tears as though it were a snowflake. Her words are sincere, but the look on her face is perplexed, almost frightened. “I’m yours?” 

Her question breaks his heart, because it seems what she is really asking is whether or not his shadow will swallow her light. 

And this unspoken question is a question he cannot answer, much as he would like to. 

“Sweetheart, I want you to be mine. But only if that is what you want. What you truly want,” he says. “What do you want, Lizzie?” 

“I want,” she begins, then draws in her breath and releases it towards the sky in a whoosh. She meets his gaze and he is certain this is it. This is when she will leave him forever because she could not possibly want to be his light in the darkness. It is too much to ask. Too much for her to bear. Even if she does not stand up and walk away from him physically, she will hide from him in the depths of her angry and traumatized mind. He steadies himself for what comes next, for she will surely leave with his breath (the little thief!) and he will return to the dark and cold depths of the ocean floor. 

He prepares himself as well as he can, but nothing could ever prepare him for what she says next. 

“I want you to let me care about you.” 

She says it and is silent as she looks at him. She touches his lips with her fingertips. 

He nods. As much as he wants this too, he feels compelled to say, “You can’t fix me.” then he mumbles, “Full disclosure and all.” 

“Yeah. I know.” She kisses him, and the relief of being able to breathe under her lips brings him more joy than he’s ever known. “You can’t fix me either,” she says, her forehead against his. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Red. When you first came to me, or rather, when I first came to you in the box, you told me if anyone could give you a second chance. . . “

“It would be you.” 

“Maybe this is our second chance?” 

“Well. Wouldn’t that be pretty?”

“Yes,” she breathes. He pats her thighs but she does not stand from his lap. He is not wearing a tie or vest, just a button down shirt, open at the neck. She lowers her face to breathe over his neck, and blows on his skin before opening her mouth to sink her teeth gently into his flesh. She increases the pressure just enough to elicit a low grumble in the back of his throat. She starts to unbutton his shirt. He does not move as she slowly releases each button, down to his navel. She spreads the fabric open and nuzzles into his chest, her breath tickling him as it drifts gently through his golden chest hair. She runs her hands over his muscles, over his nipples, pulls the hair just a bit while she looks him straight in the eye and gages his reactions. She opens her own shirt and presses her breasts against him, rubbing her delicate, white flesh against the coarseness of his hair. At last, she wraps her arms around his neck, and holds him to her, pressing his head against her heart. He shifts in his seat, and kisses her chest, her neck. For a while, they just cling like this to one another, each feeling the other’s heart beat beneath their skin. 

“Red,” she says. “If I am yours. Then, are you mine?” 

“If you’ll have me.” 

“And mine alone?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Tell me. Say it.” 

“I’m yours, Lizzie. You have my heart. I’m yours.” 

She lowers her face, and kisses him over his heart, again and again. And maybe it is just the flickering thrown from the torches, but he feels completely bathed in glowing light. 

“I will have you,” she says. She smiles against his lips and he feels her totally present with him at that moment. She is nowhere else. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, because he has learned when someone does something nice for you, such as saving your life or giving you a second chance, you are supposed to thank them.


End file.
